I’ll admit I haven’t read every single post here. But from the ones I have read, I am quite surprised that the basic ideas are being missed. First, the Civil Rights act notwithstanding, you should be able to enter into a business deal of any kind with whomever you wish and not enter into any business deal you do not wish to enter into. This is why the Civil Rights act, in my opinion went too far. Instead of making it illegal for the government to impose laws that are discriminatory (such as Jim Crow), it went a step further and said that individual citizens are not allowed to discriminate. While I agree that citizens SHOULD NOT discriminate, I also believe that the first amendment gives people the right to discriminate if they wish. The problems with enacting any law that forces you to do business with someone are not limited to the immediate effects of what amounts to involuntary servitude. The slippery slope has now enabled this law to be applied to any supposedly protected class.
In addition to the problems this type of enactment causes within U.S. civil law, let’s address the issues in Halacha. I am by no means a halachic authority and I would struggle to give mareh mikomos, but as a relatively ehrliche yid, my perception of halacha includes the idea of chillul Hashem. It is wrong for any yid to do something that gives the impression of impropriety since this constitutes a desecration of Hashem’s name. Note that the standard by which chillul Hashem is judged has nothing to do with whether gentiles will make fun of us or be dissatisfied with us (although sometimes those are measures as well). The real standard by which chillul Hashem must be judged is whether we are giving those around us an accurate representation of how Hashem wants us to live as yidden. Now, suppose a yid bakes a cake for a same-gender wedding and people at that wedding ask who baked the cake and the answer is “Moishe”, some who hear that may think that Moishe is in favor of this marriage. This type of thing happens subconsciously, by the way, anytime you go to a sporting event or see an advertisement. That’s part of the reason that companies are often pressured to remove their advertising from objectionable venues. Otherwise they are perceived to be supporting the venue ideologically. Sometimes the perceived support is a good thing for the venue and sometimes it is the opposite.
The point here is that there are reasons that a religious person would not want to be involved in certain transactions that may not be obvious to those who do not hold those religious convictions. And that is a valid point to consider. What is even more valid by U.S. Constitutional standards and what should be obvious especially to those supporting the rights of homosexuals and other minorities is that it is a bad thing when government compels anyone to do anything they do not want to do so long as there is not a good public interest reason to do so.
How soon before the government makes it illegal to operate a yeshiva or wedding hall that does not want to host a same-gender wedding?