There was a time, in my lifetime I remember walking into stores which had a sign hanging on the door, ”we reserve the right to refuse business to anyone”, when I saw these signs I understood the nature of them. This shop I am in belongs to someone with beliefs in how life should be conducted and was going to stick to those beliefs. I say Bravo; each business owner with that much conviction should be applauded.
Today our nation is so tied up in knots over the idea of freedom that these signs have disappeared, not because these business owners have changed their convictions but because they are afraid of the government. That is because today we are seeing the government decide our social mores not the people. Laws are being written now that infringe on our basic civil liberties. Many people are angry for instance at Indiana for creating a law that allows people to follow their convictions again. This is a law that allows people to be free to make the choices they believe in, which is the basic idea of this nation’s birth. I find it a sad moment when the idea of freedom of choice must be legislated and I find it to be a sign that we may be at the end of our experiment in freedom.
My own belief is this, Allow people to marry within certain parameters anyone they choose, Allow churches to decide what they will allow and what they will not, allow people to decide for themselves what they believe and what they do not and allow business to act on those beliefs. Simply take government out of the equation. Do not require Marriage licenses opening the field to the churches, mosques themselves to make the rules and then allow people to choose their religious beliefs as they will. In the end there will be bakeries that will serve gay couples and those that will not and that’s OK.
The idea that forcing someone to be open minded about anything or closed minded is absurd, in fact it creates an oppressive society in the other direction. So if we force people to serve others we are just as bad as if we force them not to serve others. In other words forcing a baker to work for someone he is morally against is no different than the Jim Crow laws of the 50’s. Freedom means choice and it is not a slap in the face for others to choose different then yourself it is simply an expression of their beliefs which is no different than supporting gay marriage which is also an expression of belief.
What I find so confounding is that in this country we need to create laws to allow the freedom of choice, choice for the consumer and the owner, you would think that living in the USA would imply that choice was as natural as breathing. Yet today many on both sides of almost every argument have forgotten that others are allowed to choose for themselves also and they forget that they have no right to interfere with those choices unless those choices are hurting others such as the marriage or sex with underage children, this is not allowed to prevent damage to the child. How about that strange man that wants to marry his pet goat, well now we protect the goat but in most cases we have allowed our morality to run amok and somehow we feel dictating to others is OK, it is not.
For those that stand by Gay marriage I applaud you right up until you tell someone else they must believe what you believe and for those that support traditional marriage I support you right up until you force those beliefs on others as well. Let the business owners decide what is right for them, you will find business on both sides of the argument and those that have no argument as they want to make a profit and choose appropriately and allow us all the freedom of choice.