So, I guess I can afford to chip in my two cents.
First, the Marshall quote is thought provoking to say the least.
Second, I am not up to speed on the exact issues in the Baker Vs Gay Wedding case, but I will consider two perspectives.
If a gay couple or an interacial couple or a Muslim couple walk into a bakery and point to an item and say, "I want to purchase that" there is no argument to support denying them such a right. By extension, if a gay couple, etc. were to leaf through the design books for the wedding cakes and ask to buy the pretty flowered one on page 16, the baker better deal because it's not his business who is going to serve it or eat it. A "nice" straight, white couple could order the same thing with the intent to throw it off a roof; the baker doesn't need to know that. Even if they told him what they wanted to do, could he get away with denying them the product because he thinks it's a sin to waste food? I don't think so, pal.
However, If a gay couple wants to order a cake with custom decorations of sugared penis sculptures, or even two staid little grooms standing side-by-side, that's another matter. I believe the baker is within his rights to say, "I won't decorate your cake that way." Call it religious rights or artistic expression, the baker isn't (or shouldn't be allowed) to refuse to sell them a cake, but he should be permitted to refrain from creating something which he, personally, finds offensive.
Do I agree with the baker and his viewpoint about gay rights? No, of course not. But if a baker refused to make a cake featuring little figures of black people with chains on their legs, most people would support his stand. (And yes, somewhere in this country there are people sick enough to order such a cake--possibly to celebrate Junior's induction into the KKK, or whatever.)
A bakery run by an Orthodox Jewish family might be offended by an request for cookies that look like breasts or penes intended for a bachelorette or bachelor party. How many would insist that they would have to make the cookies to order? Especially when there are bakeries that proudly offer those sorts of items for sale.
Shortly after the election, I read some writer's point that "Democracy is living with people whose opinions you hate."
So, yes, that baker might hate doing business with the gay couple and making them the flowery cake on page 16. But to refuse to sell a standard item from his sales line to someone because they are gay should be illegal.
The gay couple may hate the fact that the baker has Gospel music blaring in his store and and an image of Jesus hanging on the wall, but can they sue him into making a giant penis-shaped cake just because that baker has the best frosting in the biz? Better to take their business elsewhere, and loudly proclaim their opinion of the guy to everybody involved with their wedding.
Certain things can be codified into law, but one cannot legislate the human heart. Slavery was made illegal, but the hatred (and fear, inspired by unacknowledged guilt) harbored by the white population could not wiped out with an act of legislature.
The change we seek is a compound effort between laws that protect certain essential rights and an ongoing, open conversation about shared and differing values. We have an amendment protecting free speech. There is no legal body on earth that can force us to listen.
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