On the other hand, there's no principle that requires an entity like Microsoft to support services it or its customers find repugnant.
That difference simply doesn't exist in many places - because "that difference" is whatever popular opinion deems it to be at the current time and place.
In many countries simply existing as I am is worse than hate speech. Because someone decided, usually due to some religious bullshit or another, that being LGBT is bad and punishable by death. Speaking publicly about it is simply not allowed. If you do not wish to be ostracized, or worse, you keep your mouth shut. Being "pro-lgbt" is not a popular public opinion in every country. It's seen as immoral, corrupting the youth, etc.. Even within countries with majority positive opinion - there are large groups of people or even areas that are still against LGBT people.
Eventually someone needs to be the one who decides what is "good" and what is "not good" and what the public gets to see and hear. To whom would you give the job to decide what you can read? How about what you can say? To save you the responsibility of thinking for yourself? What if you don't get to choose who?
Whenever you give the power of censorship to a group or person - imagine if someone you disagree with on every subject had the power to censor what you read and say. If you are not completely okay with even your worst enemy being your censor, then do not give the power of censorship away. Society has a "not in my country" attitude that recent history has shown can oh-so-quickly fall apart.
Making a cake for a gay couple, in some countries, could put your life at risk. Be thankful you live in a country that recognizes the rights and freedoms of LGBT people.
But to return to the cake comparison: as an LGBT person as well, I still get screamed at on the street and harassed in public. Two nights ago I was walking with my same-sex partner and was followed down the street by a guy muttering, and then shouting, about "faggots" etc. He started catching up to us and we turned around, and he grabbed my partner by the neck, and we had to fight him off. But let's disregard the assault for a second and say he just followed us for a while, intimidating us, but technically within the confines of the law. Wouldn't you agree one side of this deserves to be stopped? To be silenced? I think it's an overly broad generalisation to say "Everyone always assumes it'll only work in their favour." I'm saying right here: I know that's not the case. But by the same token, trying to apply objective metrics to freedom of speech just as quickly justifies "I'm free to disagree with the way LGBT people live their lives" as much as "I'm free to walk in public without being afraid of assault." It's more nuanced than that. It isn't free or not-free. And I'd argue it's worth some people giving up certain freedoms (the freedom to denigrate other people based on their sexuality, for example) so others can increase theirs (like the freedom to walk in public without fear.)
So I'm glad I can get my cake, but if it means we're expected to shut up because we're afraid someone's going to roundhouse kick that cake out of our hands as soon as we walk out of the shop, that speech doesn't seem exceptionally free.
There are high profile "violence-inciting" people[0] that are still on Facebook et al.
Those classified by SPLC as hate groups. Google is known to use SPLC's assistance in policing Youtube.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Farrakhan#Allegations_of...
This man sounds much worse than whatever bullshit Alex Jones was peddling.
They have the right to run their businesses in any legal way they see fit, but they most definitely should not be doing any grandstanding like the Cloudflare CEO did, acting as the holier-than-thou defenders of the public, while plenty of even worse actors are still cozy on their platforms.
Do you believe a baker ought to be able to refuse service to someone over religion? If so, do you believe a baker whose beliefs condemn homosexuality should be able to refuse a same-sex couple? Do you believe a baker whose religion condemns Christianity should be able to refuse Christians?
If so, do you have a problem with a hosting service cutting off a site of which it disapproves?
Nowadays I do wonder about how much integrity is involved in our post-modern social strife. While I like to think I'd sell on principle my bread to anyone, regardless of behaviour or creed -- there are some awful people with whom I think, honestly, I'd rather have nothing to do with if I know what they've done (a child murderer or holocaust-supporter or rapist, or someone who defends them, to go to extremes).
Banishment is a social tool that has been in use for a long time (forever?), sometimes with very good reasons, probably as a last recourse; I'll feel better when we have deliberate and explicit criteria for this method.
ps: I'm neither a "conservative" nor a "progressive" -- though I uphold thoughts that may be labelled by others as one or the other.
It’s a very different scenario.
It’s more like people are hiring private investigators to follow gay people around and get a list of businesses they frequent and then organising harassment of those businesses until they refuse to do business with the homosexuals.
It’s orders of magnitude more creepy.
Gab isn't some stealthy hidden dark-web thing that you can only access from behind seven proxies after a thirty-step initiation process. Same with Alex Jones. Nobody's breaking into their homes and secretly recording statements they'd never ever make in public; these folks are getting up on soapboxes and gleefully shouting at the top of their lungs in the explicit hope that as many people as possible will hear and know about them.
So, yeah, it's 100% fair for people to point to the person standing on a soapbox in the public square who's screaming at the top of his lungs, and say "I don't want to be associated with him, or with anyone who supports him". That's freedom, and the guy doing the screaming has no grounds to try to forbid that; that would be censorship of others' opinions.
The First Amendment only stops the government from restricting speech and expression; the government can't force the bakery nor the gay customer to say or not say a specific message. Likewise, if the bakery wants to refuse service to someone, they can't claim 1A protection as a cover for that refusal because it simply doesn't apply. The 1A allows them to not be charged and prosecuted for speaking out against homosexuality, but that's it.
However, under the Civil Rights Act, they cannot refuse service to a protected class. Where it gets murky is that homosexuality is not explicitly defined as a protected class, only sex (male or female at the time of enactment). Today though, we are learning that "male" and "female" are not the only recognized sexes and there are non-binary definitions coming out all the time. The question becomes, is homosexuality a different sex as it pertains to the CRA?
I don't know the answer to that question. The way I see it though, if you are proclaiming to be a Christian yet you use that proclamation to discriminate against a particular class or individual, you are going against the teachings of Christ. According to Christian lore, he went out of his way to help the lowest of the low in his society, even those who were considered immoral or sinful by that society (prostitutes, lepers, thieves, etc). I'm not overtly religious (I was raised Baptist but I reject a lot of that sect's philosophies), but when I hand spare change to a homeless person on the street, I don't ask for sexual orientation before doing so. I see someone in need of assistance and I help where I can, because who they are doesn't matter, it's what they need that matters.
By the same token, I don't feel a business owner should care what someone's lifestyle or orientation is no matter their own beliefs, but in this nation it seems the Religious Right feels empowered to use their take on religion as a crutch to be cruel and dismissive towards those who are not perfectly in line with their own beliefs. Yes, they have a right to refuse service in certain cases, but when doing so steps on another person's right to even exist as they are, I feel it crosses a line that should not be crossed.
To put it another way: a gay couple's existence is not an aggression towards a homophobic person; there is no harm intended nor is there harm done by simply existing. But, the homophobe's negative actions towards that gay couple is an aggression.