Masterpiece Cakeshop Refuses to Bake Wedding Cake for Gay Couple

I think his "legitimate business reason" was none other than this: that putting love and care and pride and artistry into making a beautiful cake to celebrate a same-sex wedding amounts to making a statement that a same-sex wedding is something to be celebrated, whereas the man who was asked to make the cake apparently believes that a same-sex wedding is something to be lamented, not celebrated.

The customers came offering him mere money, for him to make a statement with which he would have been in profound disagreement. The money might have been tempting, because it was obviously not a cheap cake that they were asking for, but, in the end, he resisted the temptation. He wasn't willing to prostitute his art like that. Why should anybody take issue with that? It must have taken considerable courage for him to stand up for what he believed was right.

People might want to take issue with his refusal to prostitute his art to social movement that he opposed, because they disagree with his opinion about same-sex marriage. But that is rather short-sighted, because freedoms of belief and expression benefit us all, and nobody is safe in a society that martyrs any one person for exercising such basic freedoms. Moreover, this explanation hardly accounts for the degree of venom exhibited towards this willing martyr to the power of the pink dollar as a market force. There must be another reason, surely.

Is it that nowadays people who are homo-enthusiastic expect, as of right, that people who are homo-sceptic will subject themselves to the humiliation of pretending in public that they are homo-enthusiasts? I cannot help thinking that that is the agenda here, and it strikes me as a rather vindictive agenda - not to say unconstitutional in US terms, contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights in European terms, and contrary to the relevant UN Declaration on Human Rights more-or-less everywhere else as well as in Europe and the USA.

If he loses some business for taking this stand for freedom of expression, I doubt he will care much. He would probably just remind himself of the saying, "What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world, yet lose his own soul?" This way, even if he goes bankrupt, he can look his children and grandchildren in the eye, without being ashamed for living a lie when the moment of decision came, by succumbing to pressure and the offer of money, to act as though he believed that a same-sex wedding was an event to celebrate, when he believes that it is an event to lament.

The way to convince people like this that same-sex marriage SHOULD be celebrated, not lamented, is by arguing with them respectfully, not by bullying them, or calling them names. But that requires a willingness to pay as much attention to their arguments as to why it is to be lamented rather than celebrated as one expects them to pay attention to one's own contrary arguments as to why it is to be celebrated rather than respected.

first of all no homophobia. just because i disagree im not afraid of it. whats next if i dont want to try gay sex im a homophobe. you can live how you want. and yes animals do do that your right. im merely stating that if your athiest or believe in God that natural laws created by God or through nature itself are violated through homosexuality. It sounds to me that what your saying is if animals and humans have sex with the same gender it must be ok and we are all conforming to that.

He's not "refusing to serve gay customers". He's merely refusing to supply a wedding cake for a same-sex wedding.