Another significant difference in the Indiana law is that it supported religious rights in disputes between individuals. Other such laws are specific to disputes between an individual and the government in relation to the exercise of a law. In other words, it's applicable in civil cases, not just criminal ones.

To give a ridiculous example, in most such states you could claim that your religion barred you from harming vermin and therefore health laws regarding cockroaches in your kitchen did not make you liable to health laws, (if you could somehow prove that government health laws didn't represent the least intrusive government action.) This wouldn't protect you, however, from me suing you over a bug in my soup. In Indiana, you would be protected from me suing you for damages, too.

It all comes down to who's rights apply - Where does one's rights end and the other's rights begin?  The customer has the right to shop where she/he chooses and the business owner also has  the right to serve or not serve the customers they choose the right to provide or not provide products and services of her/his choice.

Correction to clarify

The way it should work is that you shouldn't be able to refuse service to anyone on the basis of religion, gender, race, gender identity. However if they ask for something that makes you uncomfortable you have the right to refuse the specific request. There was a cake shop that was willing to provide a cake to an anti-LGBT person, but they were not willing to put hate speech on it. So that's an acceptable reason to not provide complete service. I would even say the reverse should be true. If someone asks for a pro LGBT message they should have the right to refuse the message but not the service.

Quote from: mac1 on April 06, 2015, 12:42:20 PM
It all comes down to who's rights apply - Where does one's rights end and the other's rights begin?  The customer has the right to shop where she/he chooses and the business owner also has the right to serve or not serve the customers they choose.

Quote from: mac1 on April 06, 2015, 12:42:20 PM
... and the business owner also has the right to serve or not serve the customers they choose.

Yes, but what they cannot do is pick on customers because of innate characteristics. By your logic they could refuse to serve all women simply because they are women. Things used to be done that way for exactly the reason you cite.

I run a business. I will serve anyone unless they request me to break the law in which case I will inform them that their request is illegal and that I will not do it. What I will not do is turn people away because they are female / coloured / gay / red-haired / freckled / one-legged / whatever. I knew when I opened my business that I could not discriminate against customers. That knowledge is part of doing business. If someone wants to discriminate against people then they should go and open a church, not a business.

Quote from: mac1 on April 06, 2015, 12:42:20 PM
It all comes down to who's rights apply - Where does one's rights end and the other's rights begin?  The customer has the right to shop where she/he chooses and the business owner also has the right to serve or not serve the customers they choose.

Remember that the customer pool is always larger than the business pool. Smaller towns might have only one market, with the next prohibitably far away. If that one market refuses to serve an individual what recourse do they have? What if the doctor refuses? Or the police? And what if there are 10 markets and all refuse? It's happened before.

Quote from: Svetlana.K on April 02, 2015, 10:48:41 PM
" If they would have just shut their pie holes (punintentional) and kept their bigotry to themselves, there would have been zero backlash."

"If they had kept quiet..." (about their deeply held religious beliefs), they would not be suffering the backlash, threats and intimidation by those that so loudly and forcefully demand tolerance for their own views, beliefs and practices.

Is there not some irony and just a bit of hypocrisy in this attitude?  "Just sit down!  Shut up! Believe what "I" say, and I won't rain the wrath of the far left upon you, threaten you, and shut down your business."?

I kind of agree with you, which is why I think we better just leave these people alone.

I am NOT a fan of destroying someone with fake, angry reviews on Yelp or something. First of all, a person like me wades through those and looks for the real one. Secondly, the impression you're giving is that we're an angry mob, not civilized people. Is that the impression we want to come across?

A plain old boycott is fine, and I am all for that. That works.