Reply to Where do you draw the line (anti-gay bakers)?

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[quote=Anonymous]First off I want to make clear that this is a different case than the bakers in Colorado who didn't want to bake for a gay wedding. This is about Northern Irish bakers not wanting to frost a pro-gay-rights message on a cake. Articles here:

'Gay cake' row in Northern Ireland: Q&A
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-32065233

Patrick Stewart backs bakery after 'gay cake' court battle
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/patrick-stewart-backs-bakery-after-gay-cake-court-battle-10296738.html

I hesitate to start this thread and call crazies out of the woodwork, but I'm curious what others think, especially other supporters of LGBT rights (like myself). I tend to agree with Patrick Stewart (ha!) on this -- I think bakers shouldn't be allowed to refuse service to people they don't like or for events they don't like, but they should be allowed to decline to write certain messages. Is that splitting hairs?

I'm thinking, if I were a baker and some group that I found ethically awful wanted a cake, I would be ok with a legal requirement that I bake them a cake, but I'm not ok with a legal requirement that I frost a specific message on the cake. (The example I always come up with is neo-Nazis wanting a cake -- ok -- with a frosting swastika -- no.)

And since it's bizarre how this comes up so much with bakers -- What about sign makers? Is a conservative Christian sign maker required to print up banners for a gay pride march? Is a liberal sign maker required to print up banners for Westboro Baptist Church?

And I strongly believe that pharmacists should be required to fill all prescriptions regardless of their own beliefs.

I wrestle with integrating all of the above and with the moral equivalence here, because as much as I support equal rights, non discrimination, etc., I don't want to be legally required to do things that *I* would find morally wrong (like printing up anti-gay banners or decorating a swastika cake). Not asking hypothetically, genuinely wondering how others sort it out in their heads and make that distinction!
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