No shirt, no shoes, no service. We reserve the right to refuse service to anybody. No smoking. No spitting on the floor. Have you ever seen any of those signs in a restaurant or business establishment? Call me crazy but I thought a private business could in fact refuse service to anybody they chose.
Well that appears not to be the case in Oregon where a young Christian couple refused to provide a wedding cake for a lesbian couple based on their religious belief that people of the same sex should not be able to marry each other. The State of Oregon has levied a fine of $135,000 for the offense of refusing to bake them a cake.
Now I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want to eat any cake I had to sue a baker to force him to bake for me. I certainly wouldn’t want any of my guests at the wedding to be catered by an unwilling caterer who was there by court order. Personally I am leery about even sending food back to the kitchen in a restaurant when I am unhappy with it. Who knows what might come back from that kitchen?
So, what is this really all about? Is it the fact this homosexual couple particularly wanted this bakery to provide a cake, or is this something more? Like, for example, the homosexual lobby bullying a private business to get their point across? The couple’s business is destroyed. Is that what the homosexuals wanted? Is that what America is all about?
Let’s consider the First Amendment to the U.S. constitution: freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Clearly this amendment provides for each of us to be individuals in our speech and in our choices. It provides for us our right to choose our religious beliefs and the practice of those beliefs. It also allows homosexuals the right to be homosexuals. But nowhere does it require me to participate in someone else’s choices. If you want to live with your goat, that is your choice. I should never be forced by government to provide hay for your wedding. No private business in America should be required by law to provide any product or service to anyone regardless of the reason. If the business, by its policies, lost business, that is their problem. It’s none of the government’s business.
Here’s a question. If a bar owner refused to sell liquor to a customer who, by the determination of the bar owner, had had enough to drink, should he then be fined? What if the customer was a homosexual? In reality, if the bar owner sold liquor to an individual who had overindulged regardless of the drunk’s sexual preference, the bar owner would be in trouble.
As for me, I would bake a cake for any customers who could and would pay the price. My business philosophy is to be inclusive, not exclusive. The more customers the merrier. But that is my philosophy and it’s none of the government’s business. My business would then succeed or fail based on my choices and not on the choices of some government bureaucrat.
We have seen government interference with Chick-Fil-A, Hobby Lobby and now this little family-owned bakery. When is the government going to understand we have a book of rules and laws? It’s called the U.S. Constitution and it has served us for nearly three centuries. Left alone it will serve us for years to come.
