Quote: Cincinnatus wrote in post #2

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Hate to tell y'all this but this is the fruit of the historic 1964 Civil Rights Act that Republicans made possible. ...it also included a provision to prohibit ban discrimination in public accommodations. (emphasis added).

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"• Should a homosexual baker be forced to make a “God Hates Fags” cake for Westboro Baptist Church, simply because its members claim to be Christian?"

My answer would be no, he shouldn't. He should be able to tell the WBC to take a hike. But when the law became involved and criminalized gay discrimination they overstepped their boundaries. The morals of a Country should not be decided by a calculation of equality as the highest truth.
That levels the playing field for immorality and morality to become equal. What a coup for the unrighteous!

Quote: Cincinnatus wrote in post #6

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Well the law still seems good to me.
If public discrimination had not been prohibited, the law would have been a sham.

Sorry, ThirstyMan, you are wrong. Government has no right to tell people how to use their own property, absent fraud or force. By granting to the Feds the power to tell a business who it must serve is a from of Socialist totalitarianism.

By accepting that government has the right to do just that based on race, you are bestowing upon it the power to do it for any group, including homosexuals.

Btw, the 1964 law wasn't given its full effect by prohibiting business owners from denying people from entering their establishments, but rather by the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which was (correctly) aimed at governmental discrimination.

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@algernonpj
Thanks for posting that article by Murdock. It's the most enlightening treatment of this problem that I've seen. It incorporates some of the objections our members have raised.

"As the First Amendment states: “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble.” The Ninth Amendment also applies here: “The Enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

“The freedom in ‘freedom of association’ is the freedom to be left alone, not the ‘freedom’ to force oneself on another.”

"So, what is ManMate.com going to say when a straight man complains, “What’s with all the dudes on your website? I’m a man, and I want to check out hot chicks!” This guy could use eHarmony’s precedent to sue ManMate.com and force its employees and managers to start helping boys seek girls."

If this "freedom" is indeed enshrined in the Bill of Rights then we're all set. The pendulum swings to its logical extreme and then must return to the sensible middle ground.

Around here the Curves health centers are for women only. The freedom to force myself on them is almost irresistible.