False comparison, A caterer often provides you with a sample of what they are willing/able to prepare. Their specialties. You do NOT tell them what to make, they tell you what your options are. If you want something else, you have to go to someone else. In some cases a caterer will sub-contract to get something they don’t know how to make, but it’s usually at a cost-prohibitive markup. More to the point, a Kosher caterer not only won’t make ham, they won’t know HOW to cook ham properly. It requires knowing how to prepare the meat safely and correctly.

Not true of photos of a gay couple. It does not require a different kind of photography or camera, one Elaine might not know how to use.

This is an important distinction for gay people to make. Too many people of faith have voted (literally voted, not just expressed an opinion) against gay marriage in the past few years because they believe that allowing someone else to act in accordance with their beliefs is somehow an affront to their own beliefs. That’s just wrong. My right to live according to my beliefs is intrinsically linked to someone else’s right to live according to their beliefs.

When Catholics, for example, try to use the law to force me to follow Catholic teachings, it’s an attack on my beliefs, but it’s also an attack on their own. It’s a vote that says thatit’s the government’s place to enforce religious rules. Unfortunately, the gay community doesn’t always engage very well when it comes to dialoguing with people of faith.

Phil’s point that the personal nature of the service provided makes a difference is bothering me. Phil might be right. I’m not sure.

TRiG.

Unlike the Big & Tall shop, Elane didn’t organize her business for the purpose of serving “anyone but gay couples,” nor did she create her business with the intention of serving “couples who conform to my religious beliefs.”

Actually, according to her actions, that is exactly how she organized her business: she was interested in providing the service of photographing male-female weddings.

“Unlike the coach, her time and her photography skills are not somehow “wasted” when the wedding involves a gay couple.”

And what if she thinks that they are? Who is better qualified to determine what is and is not a waste of Elane’s time? A stranger, or Elane herself? People have a right to be bigots. They have a right to think bad things, and to be stupid.

If I hire a kosher caterer for my wedding and I tell him that, instead of providing shaved beef, my religious beliefs require me to eat shaved ham, is he discriminating if he refuses to cater the wedding? Why should _I_ get to decide what is an imposition on my caterer’s religious beliefs and what isn’t? Why should a couple get to decide what is an imposition on a photographer’s beliefs and what isn’t?

I think the personal nature of the service provided makes a difference. The owner of an apartment building cannot refuse to rent a unit to a couple based on their race, but a Muslim man who has a room to let inside his home can choose not to rent it to a woman. A single woman with a spare room can choose not to rent it to a man.

It saddens me that your idea of freedom is so skewed from what it actual means that you think I am the one with the mangled definition. Try reading some Aristotle and Locke to get a better understanding of what freedom really means.

But that would restrict mah freedom!

Somalia is not a libertarian paradise, because the government there does not do the basic necessary things to secure liberty (i.e. property rights, rule of law, due process, etc.).

One more time, even though it’s been explained repeatedly for over 80 comments:

Their right to be treated equally as per the laws of the state of New Mexico when soliciting a service from a vendor. If the vendor does not like the laws of the state in which she lives, she has several choices: 1. Suck it up and abide by the law like a grown-up, as opposed to being a whiny baby who thinks her bigotry has anything to do with her business. 2. Find a new job. 3. Move to another place where she can be free to deny services to gay people, at least until they change their laws to include sexual orientation. (Thank god, as has been pointed out before, that Elaine is a mere wedding photographer, and not the only heart surgeon for 300 miles.) 4. Break the law again and get sued, again.

And again, when you use the word “freedom,” you might well be typing a random combination of letters, numbers and characters, because your “defintion” of the word is so mangled as to be absolutely meaningless.

After all
Would this harm you? No, you’re not home.

Is this stealing? No. Your cable is not being charged per minute, they’re not leaving with it, and certainly not depriving you of the use of it as you are not home to use it.

Does this enslave you? No.

That’s the problem with spelling out what your exact beliefs are, you paint yourself into a ridiculous corner.

ANd on a different point you made about lying. There’s a difference between lying and professional courtesy. If one wishes to work with the public, one learns how to deal with customers politely and respectfully — even when saying “No”. It’s not about lying, it’s about respecting other people.