Yuyutsu:

Your little piece of heaven can remain just that if you keep the doors shut. When you open it up to other people it does not mean that you have absolute rights over those people. One of those rights you lose is the right to discriminate unless you are prepared to accept the consequences. You have to decide whether you want to make money from your restaurant and if you do then you have become a part of society and you have to solve your problem in logical and reasonable ways like the rest of society.

Robert:

“Often they have been complicit in creating or actively supporting those who spread the hatred that leads to that harm.”

That maybe true but there is not much point in saying it. There are no laws against doing that – it is a by-product of free speech. Maintaining law and order is paramount and the minute those people who wish to harm homosexuals overstep that boundary then they should be forced to suffer the consequences.

Dear Phanto,

The city of Sodom, we are told, had a law: if you have a guest, then you must share him (sexually) with the rest of town. On that level you are right - such are the laws of society in which we live even as we speak and if this forum were a university course in legal studies, then I would receive an astounding F.

Yet my interest is in morality, rather than in existing laws, asking what is and what isn't acceptable for those who want to have and live in a society.

There never existed a "right to discriminate", which could therefore be subsequently lost, for the simple reason that I was never given that right by anyone. Instead, my freedom to discriminate is natural and innate, so the question turns around to be "who and on what grounds has a right to take my freedom away?".

Had it not been for those Australian laws that heavily restrict the use of other currencies, including private/communal currencies, had we been free to use [only] our own currency, then what you wrote could have been completely correct. In that case, it would be reasonable to condition the use of Australian dollars on following certain social norms on the basis of "don't like it - don't use it!". Since this is not the case, asking to be paid for my restaurant services is not a morally valid excuse to demand compliance.

When I open the door to my little piece of heaven, neither do I have absolute rights over the people who enter, nor they over me: instead, my rights and theirs should be determined by whatever is agreed between us, and whatever was agreed should then be followed. If no agreement is reached, then no-hard-feelings: I can stay in my little piece of heaven while they can stay outside.

I do not want to get side-tracked by discussions of Canadian legal experiences, smoking muslims or christian cake decorators!!

Can someone, anyone, name the religious freedoms that will be lost by allowing same-sex marriage?

If, as I suspect, such a list is not produced it will be because it cannot be produced. The reality is that permitting same sex marriage curtails NO religious freedom .

Dear Brian,

As far as I read and understand, nobody here believes or claims that permitting same sex marriage curtails religious freedom, but the topic here is "Same-sex marriage PUSH threatens religious freedoms": it's the act of PUSHING which creates those threats that we speak about, as well as the true intent of the pushers and their future plans to build on this symbolic achievement and deliberately use it to harass religious people, rather than some benign act of permitting people of the same sex to marry (which is already permitted anyway).

As an analogy, normally there's nothing threatening about buying bananas, but if you buy bananas for the purpose of leaving peels on the path so that somebody you hate slips and breaks their neck, then it is a threat.

Selling the notion of sin is a business, not a religion .

Given the benefit of doubt that if it is. religious freedoms meaning you have your right to falling in love and marry your Christ. no more no less ..

Yuyutsu,
you're projecting. The fact that some religious people make the claim that they feel threatened by the movement to have marriage equality recognised under the law does not make the claim true, nor does it make the threat real.

It does say quite a bit about the people who make that claim, however, not a lot of it good.