I think you're kind of missing the point here that "LGBTQ" rights are just human rights. If the regime you live under doesn't respect individual autonomy then everyone is gonna have a bad time.
As an LGBT, I agree its a difficult situation. On the one hand, as you likely do, I feel strongly about private business owners having the freedom to run their businesses the way they see fit, including being able to choose their customers. If someone told me they don't want to sell to LGBT, I would accept that decision without complaint because I respect their autonomy (in fact, I would be happy I avoided giving them money). On the other hand, what happens when everyone in an area decides that LGBT, or black people, or Muslims, or anyone else universally aren't welcome. Those people basically get shut out of society, and that doesn't seem like something we want to encourage at a societal level either.
Finally, as much as it pains me to say it, there is also the matter of logical consistency: Many Christians would go absolutely ape shit if they were stopped in a store while wearing a cross and told "hey, your kind isn't wanted here"; yet because their preferred exclusion is noted in an old book (which of course, they wrote) that is suddenly perfectly acceptable.
> On the other hand, what happens when everyone in an area decides that LGBT, or black people, or Muslims, or anyone else universally aren't welcome.
It doesn't need to be everyone to have a chilling effect on the quality of life for people in the targeted group. I'm all for freedom of expression in general but treating someone badly because of how they were born is just mean.
Now consider the cake. The baker, contrary to headlines, didn't object to selling them a cake. If they wanted a generic cake like the dozens on his shelves, or wanted to buy bottled water or any other of his creations, he would have sold it to them immediately.
He objected to making them a personalized cake that endorsed their relationship on it, which would require his creativity to be poured into something explicitly endorsing the issue. And his argument is that if he can be forced to write something endorsing their relationship, why couldn't, say, a racist come in demanding he write something racist on a cake?
I don't really object to that balance. If it's something generic and impersonal, sell it, and if it's something very personal, have the right to object. That's not significant exclusion from society. Are you truly significantly excluded from society when you can get the same service from a 7 minute walk to Walmart (as the court case declared), or buy some icing and do it yourself?
In this specific case, I agree with you and the courts. You shouldn't be able to compel speech (i.e. their writing) and you shouldn't be able to compel custom work. I'm speaking more broadly about regional discrimination. If there is only one grocery store in twenty miles, you don't have a car, and you're told you can't do business there, that's a problem. However, this is not the context here and you clearly imply that such behavior would not be ok.
A liberal state is not capable of granting religious freedom. All it can offer are religious rights, which means that you are allowed to imagine that you are Christian (or whatever other religious affiliation), and you may dress up in funny costumes and participate in funny symbolic rituals, but as soon as you attempt to exercise your religion in a way that contradicts the economic logic of our society, then the state has to crush you as ruthlessly as any political enemy.
To ask the liberal state to do otherwise is nonsense. If you want to exercise your religion in a way that exceeds the bounds that are set for you by the state, you have to step outside of your fantasy and engage directly in politics to convince the rest of society that your religion should have greater authority than the state. If you actually believe that your religion is greater than all others, then you should be able to prove it in the political realm.
"you should be able to prove it in the political realm."
Well, you've got Saudi Arabia, and countless Arab nations. You've got Israel, and there's also Vatican City (which is a nation inside Italy, albeit a small one).
However they aren't exactly popular in liberal society...
Vatican isn’t a nation. It’s a country, created by Mussolini. It was never a real nation, only a bribe to convince the Church to not interfere with “fight against communism”.
Actually, the Vatican City is a remnant of the Papal States, a nominal nation that encompassed significant parts of Italy for much of the Middle Ages. And the Papal States were a descendant of the "Holy Roman Empire," which encompassed massive parts of Europe during the Middle Ages. Vatican City is the smallest that it's been in over a thousand years.
In the narrowest ruling possible, for that one time only on a technicality, which means that baker is currently being sued again. And it doesn't change most LGBTQ activists want him to lose, with their agenda triumphing over his autonomy.
