I'm not suggesting they refuse service, I'm suggesting they should be able to refuse to customise their service in a specific way. I'm an atheist. I wouldn't dream of going into a bakery run by Muslims and asking them to make me a cake with "there is no God!" piped on it. If the law requires them to do that, then the law is wrong. On the other hand, when it comes to essential service, I would have no hesitation entering a pharmacy staffed by a devout Catholic and asking for the morning after pill. And if they refused, I would sue the shit out of them. This isn't about service. It's about being forced to modify your service, and offer a product that you don't normally sell.
Again, no. I don't care that you're an atheist. I don't care what you would or wouldn't do in a Muslim bakery. the law isn't for what people want to do, the law is for what people are required to do. This is something that is often lost: nobody wants to get an abortion. If you need one, you're in a black place in life. That black place is where laws happen. You're crafting this idea where it's bad manners to do business with someone not of your creed. Sure. Know what? I'm the only white guy my barber cuts hair for and he does a damn fine job and we get along great. Did I seek out a barber in Westchester? Nope. But there was a nice lady there who left and me and Marty have been getting along for five years now. Should Marty be allowed to refuse to cut my hair? You keep throwing up these boundaries so that you can keep things in the nice, logical, friendly part of the discussion where you look sensible and rational and then throw up these ridiculously offensive objections that make anyone wanting the opposite look deprived. Again, it's beneath you. If you needed a cake with "there is no God!" piped on it, and the only place you could get it was a Muslim bakery, the Muslim bakery cannot legally refuse to sell you a cake. Full stop. That's the law, has been for 50 years. How many cases of offensive atheist cakes can you think of? I'll wager "none." That's because nobody else would dream of asking for your hatecake, either... ...but it doesn't change the fact that your hatecake is legally protected. This isn't about service. This is about equality under the law, and equal access in society.
I think this reflects a kind of cultural mindset gulf between the US and perhaps European countries. To me it's absurd that someone would "need" a cake to the point that they feel they have a "right" to it. It's absurd to me - and rude - that I would impose my beliefs on someone else such that they were forced to modify their services and their own beliefs - for a non-essential product or service. I guess the split here is that you talk from a position about rights. It's all about "your rights" - the customer's absolute right to always be right and always be served. And your laws reflect that. Whereas for me - as someone from a nation for whom queuing politely and apologising when someone else bumps into you is a national pastime - it's about consideration. I don't need or want laws that legally protect a hate cake. I'm quite happy to have such speech restricted. If I have to express my own freedom of speech through other channels, that's fine. I'll do so. I'll find another cake vendor, or make my own, or perhaps put the message on a table decoration. I don't think we are going to reconcile this, because I'm not arguing from a legal point of view (and I'm outside the US anyway, so your laws don't really affect me) but I what I personally believe should be the situation. Our difference of opinion on this is a cultural one, it's a difference of attitude.
Right - that polite country of yours. Europeans looking down their noses at Americans for their civil issues is the most tired, most tawdry, most hypothetically continental move there is. In Amsterdam, this is "tradition": In Los Angeles, this is front-page scandal: The split here is you come from a homogenous society based on a homogenous culture that emphasizes homogeneity. Y'all are 87% white, maybe 7% Indian, 3% black, nothing else really in the numbers. Where I grew up, white folx were the third largest minority behind Hispanics and Native Americans. It's easy for you to be high and mighty.
It's not "looking down their noses", it's appreciating a cultural difference. Of course your own history of migration, legacy of slavery, geographic diversity and higher extant religiosity are going to mean you need different laws. It's not about better/worse, it's about practicality and what fits the current state of society. The US needs stronger enforcements of anti-discrimation because there is still more cultural discrimination. You had enforced segregation within living memory, we did not. I'm not sure why you're trying to paint me as "high and mighty". I fully admit that your country lags Europe in some regards (I can't imagine an openly atheist president would yet be electable, for example). In some other regards, the US exceeds Europe (secularity in public schools for starters). Plus there is also a lot of diversity within Europe. Ireland and a couple of countries massively lag the rest of the developed world in terms of reproductive rights. Here in Australia, we lag horribly when it comes to gay marriage rights.
Really? I'll assume you're not considering aboriginal discrimination, then. Although I shouldn't talk, we in NZ aren't a whole lot better. At least we have legal gay marriage now, finally (c'mon over!) still more cultural discrimination (in the USA)