Should churches that don't perform gay marriages lose their tax-exempt status?

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Absolutely not. No church should be forced to hold gay weddings. In 20 years, eh maybe. Are churches allowed to forbid interracial marriages today?

But they should lose tax-exempt status if they campaign on political issues.

After gay marriage was legalized in Connecticut in 2008, there was a referendum question on the November ballot over whether or not to authorize a constitutional convention, solely in order to pass a gay marriage ban. The Catholic Church in my town had a sign on it's front lawn urging a "yes" vote. That should have been unacceptable. If they want to influence politics, then no more special treatment. Thankfully it was voted down in the ensuing Obama landslide.

So if the pastor speaks out against rounding up undocumented immigrants and sending them to camps, they should have their tax-exempt status revoked?  No thank you.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

This is an outrage and massive infringement on the personal freedom of these bakers! What's next, they'll be forced to bake cakes for blacks and Hispanics, because of a religiously justified opposition to their skin color!?

I wonder if people believe a baker should be allowed to close their doors to Jews looking for a cake for a bar mitzvah because of the baker's religious views.

I wonder if people believe a Muslim bookseller should have to sell an (Arabic) Quran to Pastor Terry Jones.  

(No, I don't really wonder, I already know they do. Same people who hate conservative Christians hate Orthodox Jews and Muslims, more often than not.)

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

This is an outrage and massive infringement on the personal freedom of these bakers! What's next, they'll be forced to bake cakes for blacks and Hispanics, because of a religiously justified opposition to their skin color!?

I wonder if people believe a baker should be allowed to close their doors to Jews looking for a cake for a bar mitzvah because of the baker's religious views.

I wonder if people believe a Muslim bookseller should have to sell an (Arabic) Quran to Pastor Terry Jones.  

(No, I don't really wonder, I already know they do. Same people who hate conservative Christians hate Orthodox Jews and Muslims, more often than not.)

Ok, so you are in the camp that believes that bakers should be able to discriminate against Jews if they want to use the cake in a bar mitzvah. Am I reading this correctly?

O I don't know, I'm not sure that hypothetical is quite ridiculous enough to consider.  Maybe if there were a spaceship who had a religious objections to Martians, I think that's a better example.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

The really amazing thing is that there are people who want to force unwilling people to play key roles in what is supposedly the biggest day of their lives.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

I guess Jews are not allowed to have any dietary restrictions beyond the most literal reading of Leviticus?  Or maybe they don't have even that, if they are getting a bar mitzvah cake from a non-Jewish baker.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

I guess Jews are not allowed to have any dietary restrictions beyond the most literal reading of Leviticus?  Or maybe they don't have even that, if they are getting a bar mitzvah cake from a non-Jewish baker.

You're assuming the baker is one of the partners in the same-sex marriage again...

In any case, I know where your mind is on this. I think we can agree, it would be for the best for the Republican nominee to stand up for the right of people to deny services and products to gays and lesbians, and that this is the most important civil rights and discrimination issue in our society today. I would love to have this be a theme of the 2016 election.

I am assuming again what?  I'm talking about your idea that a person is only allowed to disagree with something if they agree with your interpretation of the bible and its implication for morality.

But yeah, basic freedom of conscience protections are pretty damn important. More than satisfying the vindictiveness of those who find no better way to celebrate their marriage than by using it as an occasion to sue people who disagree (Nothing says "love" like punishing people with different beliefs than you, right?).

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

But yeah, basic freedom of conscience protections are pretty damn important.

True, but I'm not sure what that has to do with this subject? We're talking about public accommodations serving customers or declining to serve customers, not engaging in religious (or sacrilegious) activities. In any case, I agree with you! This is the most important issue of our time and all of our voters (especially the young ones) need to know where our leaders stand! Let's have the Republican candidate stake out this position and run on it in 2016.

For a religious person, there is not one morality for 'secular' situations and one for 'religious' situations.  All of life, including one's profession, are directed by one's moral duties.  Directing  someone to lend their expression and talents to something they disagree with is an infringement on their liberty.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

But yeah, basic freedom of conscience protections are pretty damn important.

True, but I'm not sure what that has to do with this subject? We're talking about public accommodations serving customers or declining to serve customers, not engaging in religious (or sacrilegious) activities. In any case, I agree with you! This is the most important issue of our time and all of our voters (especially the young ones) need to know where our leaders stand! Let's have the Republican candidate stake out this position and run on it in 2016.

You're being a bit haughty here, now aren't you?  

But I must agree with you, that it is being blown all out of proportion, this endangerment to religious expression. It's there at the margins, but it's hardly some sort of crisis, shocking to the conscience of those who care about religious liberty. Why? I suspect because it's a proxy, a channel to vent frustration that those who wish in a more "perfect" world that gays have a more marginalized status, consigned to the shadows, have endured a total defeat, both at the ballot box, in public opinion, in the trends in public opinion (the young, even the Pub young, have been "brainwashed" into a near total tolerance and acceptance of gays), and in the Courts. It's been a bloodbath for them as it were, and seemingly something of a permanent plate tectonic shift.

Anyway, I hope that we can try to be gracious in victory. Give them all time to process it all, and work it out to the point where they can just move on, to other issues.

In what sense is the threat to religious liberty "on the margins"? 

You are right, it is a proxy. It is a proxy as to whether or not a person must shunt his or her moral and religious beliefs in the course of everyday activities in order to not to offend others, and be punished by the state otherwise.