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)