Dear Paul,

Forcing another to work for you against their will, let alone against their conscience, is called 'slavery'. The judge was therefore wrong because slavery goes against the American constitution.

Regardless, assuming that this bakery was private and received no public funds or orders, one's shop is like one's home and one should be able to only invite in those s/he wants.

It's not that I approve of the behaviour of those particular bakers, but the proper response for this incident is not in the legal field, but simply when those bakers find themselves barred by the owners of dozens of other shops and services.

Over the past couple weeks here in Noosa a gay group has been asking the Council to declare its support for gay marriage. The Council's response was the marriage law is outside Council jurisdiction and therefore Council will not comment one way or the other. Noosa Council is a very progressive green council.

Since Council's decline to participate there have been a barrage of letters to the editor in the local paper deriding council, threatening to vote them out, accusations council is pandering to the elderly retired residents, being homophobic, etc, etc. There letters are very aggressive and in my opinion nothing short of bullying.

I find the behaviour of this group offensive and regretfully not out of character.

I support Marriage equality and would like to see a bipartisan conscience vote, as I think that it would eventually get through.

However, I see Tanya Plibersek's move as a political stunt to shore up her personal support in her inner city seat that is under threat from the greens. This is unlikely to be accepted by the labor caucus and will likely torpedo any chance of bipartisanship if it is.

Labor is being torn apart. It is struggling to meet the demands of middle Australia in the battlers who while workers are typically more traditional, and the left leaning inner city mob that are far more liberal. A conscience vote means MPs can pander to a particular demographic they represent, a forced vote risks losing more votes than it gains.

Once gay marriage is introduced constant bullying by gay couples against others conscience happens. My previous link is just one example of an extreme case.

The ultimate 'conscience' vote would be a referendum.

However gay activists who do not represent gays and leftist 'Progressives', who always presume to know what is best for others, are opposed to a referendum. Democracy is not for them, they want their views to rule. It is either their way or the highway.

It is ridiculous to talk about 'conscience'. It is simply more of the cultural war, promoting the ultilitarianism that excuses anything they want, but conversely is subjective whenever they want it to be. It often wrongly assumes there are no others affected by a decision than those making it. For example, any sex is OK provided the participants agree and no-one outside of them should(!) be affected, so shut up!

Gay marriage is one of the large hammers that leftist 'Progressives' and feminists use to destroy the society and values they object to. They sledge the 'traditional' family and would prefer to get rid of marriage entirely. So much for supporting 'gay marriage equality', when it is just a stepping stone for rule breakers to destroying their hated institution of marriage.