Swarms of decent people, who are not at all hateful by nature, sincerely desire to support Christian baker Jack Phillips against his dishonest detractors.... but they SHOOT THEMSELVES AND HIM in the foot every time they commit the innocent but harmful blunder of saying that the issue is "the right to refuse service." No one I know who uses this loaded phrase today is any sort of racist; but when they use the infamous phrase, they might as well hang signs from their necks which say: "Here you are, leftists, I'm offering you the perfect chance to discredit me by convincing the public that I'm a hate-filed bigot!"
This being so, I lately addressed one of these well-meaning persons, to help him think the point through....
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The specific phrase "right to refuse service" is ABSOLUTELY AND FOREVER ENGRAVED IN GRANITE IN THE AMERICAN CONSCIOUSNESS as meaning a claimed right to exclude WHOLE CATEGORIES of people from ever being customers AT ALL. Neither you nor I can ever change this. Use the phrase "right to refuse service," and this will INVARIABLY bring to people's minds the segregated lunch counters of yore.
Jack was NOT doing what those racist lunch-counter owners did in the past; but the WORD "service" is too easily perceived as having the kind of broad meaning the racists followed. The way *I* put it, in terms of refusing to make WRONG PRODUCTS, avoids this pitfall of being falsely associated with white supremacists.
Jack never turned anyone away from his shop just for BEING gay. But lying leftists want the public to THINK that's what happened. And every time any of us appeals to the "refuse service" phrase, it is AS INEVITABLE AS DEATH AND TAXES that we WILL be helping the leftists to continue their LIE that Jack was shutting out ALL GAYS AS A CATEGORY. Not maybe. Not sometimes. Absolutely every time, with no exceptions, and no possibility of an exception.
