Yes, opponents of the proposed law that just got vetoed in Arizona claim it's all about civil rights. It would have protected the rights of business owners to refuse to engage in transactions that they found morally offensive on the grounds of objecting to homosexuality. A photographer could have refused to photograph a gay wedding, or a baker could have refused to bake a cake with icing pictures of two grooms, or a printer could have refused to print flyers advertising a pride rally.
Now they can't. There have already been test cases where homosexual couples wanted to force businesses to provide services at their "weddings". Now, in the state of Arizona, there is no question. If a homosexual wants a business to provide a service, they must.
Never mind that any successful service business occasionally turns away prospective clients for any number of reasons. Never mind the concept of freedom of association. If you own a business in Arizona and a homosexual says "jump", you ask, "how high?" or spend your foreseeable future in court, where you are now guaranteed to lose.
If a business owner cannot refuse to serve a client, that business owner is not free. You could even say they are no longer the owner. They are a mere servant of the state and their new homosexual masters.
This is slavery.
There is one depressingly amusing upside to this debate. All the commentary on this law assumes that religion is the only reason one might object to "alternative" sexual lifestyles. I often see the same view expressed in abortion discussions: if you're opposed to abortion, it must be on religious grounds. The idea that one might have moral convictions that are not grounded in religion is anathema to pro-gay and pro-abortion sides.
Yet, atheists (who share a large Venn diagram space with the pro-gay and pro-abortionist groups) act deeply offended when theists explain that without an objective external source for morality - i.e., God - what you call your morality is essentially a cluster of personal preferences that can't really be logically justified.
So, they claim that they can have morality without religion. But when someone raises a moral objection to something they like, it's assumed that religion is the only possible reason for doing so.
In other words, religion isn't necessary for morality when they don't want it to be, but it is when they do.
It's refreshing to see this hypocrisy on such blatant display. I just wish more people could see it.
"Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe." - 2 Corinthians 4:4 (NLT)
Enough rambling. Here's a picture of a tower my son built from Lego (R) brand building bricks, as the lawyers insist on calling them. Note Spider-Man bursting forth from the microwave.
