Oh dear gods. The argument from cake design. Again.

I guess you can't teach old dogs new tricks.

"Why should they be excluded from such business opportunities particularly when there would only be a few homosexual civil weddings and these couples can easily organise their cakes, flowers and venues elsewhere?"

Quite so. And why should bakers who hate Aboriginals be excluded from business opportunities when there are only a few Aboriginals likely to come in and buy bread? Why should deli owners who hate amputees be excluded from business opportunities when only a few amputees are going to purchase prosciutto from them?

The answer is, because we're fortunate enough to live under a government and a legislature which has decided that making discrimination illegal is more important than catering to the sensibilities of people with irrational prejudices.

Get a new government and a new legislature to repeal those laws and renounce the principles behind them, and you can discriminate against your customers any way you like. Till then -- as the Kleins have discovered -- you have to obey the law and the spirit of the law like everyone else.

As I understood it, the Kleins refused to provide a particular service - similar to that of the Ashers Baking Company in Northern Ireland (http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-32065233) - i.e. "discriminated" against products they would not sell or provide service, for whatever silly reason and with whatever silly justification, not against customers.

This is different from not selling e.g. an ordinary loaf of bread because the customer is gay, or of the wrong ethnicity, etc, which indeed would be an objectionable discrimination. See also http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=17391#307198.

TTBN, what are you saying the only thing holding you back from raping and murdering people is a belief in God.

Sodomy occurs between different sex couples as well! All we can require of them is that they use a condom!

If the couple hadn't presented together how would the cake shoppe owner known that their religious scruples were being offended?

However, I agree if no money was exchanged nor contractual obligation given, then the service provider remains free to withhold service on any grounds they like? Say on the grounds that the intending couple were both left handed or cross eyed or had cleft palates, or spoke in foreign tongues?

The only actual choice anyone has is the thoughts they care to entertain in their minds, and through them their attitudes!

Not so long ago those who suggested that the world was not flat and not at the centre of a six thousand year old universe could have been excommunicated as heretics! Such was the foundational belief of the Church!?

And at one time it was okay to burn people at the stake for being unusually insightful like a legendary St Joan, or being born different!Or that meditation was the work of the devil!Could these mouth frothing fanatics be wrong yet again?

And that the only real choice we have is limited to our thoughts and through them our attitudes!?

The peasants are revolting highness! Well I think so to, let them all take a bath!

The people have no bread highness! Well let them eat cake! The cake shoppe owner is refusing to bake cakes highness! Well off with his head!

The moral of the story? Nobody should lose their head over whether or not someone will or won't bake a cake!
Rhrosty.

It's worth remembering that "homo-" is derived from the Greek.

While we are on the topic of Greeks, it's amazing that there seems not to have been any threads dealing with the financial crises in Greece and China.

I realise that, for comfortable professionals, academics and bureaucrats, these issues are nowhere near as important as the equality of marriage between homosexuals, but we may yet feel their repercussions.

Over the next few months, just keep your eye on:

* the fate of Greek academics and bureaucrats, and

* the price AND the quantity of Australian mineral being sold to China.

We are not immune to the misfortunes about to descend on our Greek and Chinese brethren.

Joe