There have now been several cases of various vendors associated with the wedding industry where Christian shop owners have turned down the requests of gay couples to bake their wedding cake, take their wedding pictures, etc. and the offended couples have sued. State agencies have usually sued too for civil rights violations and the usual suspects have chimed in with their quick condemnation of the effrontery of these merchants. Even in the Christian community there has been a division of opinion. John Stonestreet writing in Breakpoint makes a good point in considering this issue saying that:
Good point. Where do the Constitutional rights of the merchants under the First Amendment end and the gay couples' begin? When you lose the ability to say "no" I would submit that the line has been crossed - respect yes; compulsion no.
Turning the facts around, Stonestreet poses the fact situation where one of the "loving" members of the Westboro Baptist Church comes in and demands that a Christian baker bake a cake that says, "God hates fags!" How about a Jewish baker who has a Muslim customer who orders a cake with the inscription, "Death to the Jewish Pigs!" Should the bakers be able to say "no" and, if so, how is this different from the situation with the gay couple? The difference is, of course, that one group is politically popular right now and the others are not, but the law is supposed to treat people equally. The answer is that a Christian or Jew should be able to say "no" in any of these situations. Whether they do or not is up to them, but they should not be compelled by the law -respect yes; compulsion no.
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