I get some of the sentiments behind the pushes to force bakers and photographers to serve weddings in the LGBTQ community. I get it while thinking that the push is morally wrong.
I mean, you're allowed to not like people or businesses. You're allowed to not give anybody your money for any reason. If you don't like Dan Cathy's views on gay marriage, it's entirely within your rights to not eat at Chick-fil-A. It's entirely within your rights to accuse people of bigotry and homophobia.
What's not within your right is to use the government to compel speech and expression and force people to participate in something that they find to be immoral or uncomfortable.
What people miss about this debate is the First Amendment component. The Supreme Court has found that free speech includes expressive speech and that compelled speech is unconstitutional. A recent lawsuit against a Texas school district was just won by a student who sued because a teacher forced her to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. There's a lot of precedent.
Really, there are a lot of levels to how wrong this crusade is. It seems that the activists hold their rights to disassociation as sacred while crusading against the rights of other people to disassociate with them.
I would argue that legally compelling a photographer or a baker to express him or herself in a way that he or she finds objectionable is no better than legally forcing a socialist to write about how great capitalism is.
Seriously, call the person a bigot and walk away. That's okay. Don't call the person a bigot and then force that person to hang out with you.
What's more, this opens the door to thought crimes.
I generally genuinely hate doing wedding and engagement photography. Since I graduated from college, I've only done engagement and wedding photos for very close friends and I've generally asked them not to credit me in the photos. I don't want to put anything into my portfolio, no matter how good it is, that I don't want to do repeatedly; but, imagine what the end result of this legal push would be. For all I know a friend could refer a gay couple to me for engagement photos and I could turn them down, not because I have any problem with them as people, but because that's not the kind of work that I like to do regardless of who's getting married. I could still find myself in court over that. Even though I'd probably win, it could still financially damage me with legal fees and potential reputational problems. Even if those weren't problems, the point is that I would be in a position where I would have to prove to the court that my motivation wasn't that I have a view that the state finds to be morally wrong; but, because it's just not the kind of work that I want to do.