This is such an incredibly intrusive, disgusting story.
By the way, gay marriage is still illegal in CO.
Some of this language is terrifying:
"A judge previously ruled a business owner cannot refuse service to a customer on the basis of sexual orientation.
Phillips appealed to the commission, but it upheld the decision."
So a judge ordered them to bake a cake.
This is the state telling a private business what do to. Is this America?
That's not how it works in democracies.
But these bakers are not backing down either.
The way it should work in a democracy is is that if a business discriminates against someone, society decides whether to frequent that business or not. Civil society takes the reigns and the market decides. But it could be that this is not a priority issue for the majority of the cake-buying public in CO and that was clearly unacceptable to this bully couple.
So, this couple made it a state issue and wanted to use the process to destroy the business owners for no other reason than their Christian beliefs. Using the state apparatus to destroy citizens is called totalitarianism.
And this:
"The commission also ordered the baker to submit quarterly reports about
the customers he refuses to serve and retrain employees to serve
everyone."
Re-education gulag, for real, in America. What business is it of the state to demand such reports? This is quite literally Big Brother territory.
"For the couple, they said they always believed they were in the right
and it was important to pursue the case for future customers."
“The next time a gay couple wanders in there asking for a wedding cake, they won’t have the experience we had."
“They will have a responsible experience and leave feeling respected.”
All that matters is feelings.
People will be destroyed, their livelihoods crushed but at least a couple of belligerents will feel respected and that's the main thing, right?
