A recent poll showed that 67 percent of Utahns feel it is an appropriate expression of religious freedom for a baker to refuse to make a wedding cake for a gay couple.
So, let me ask you: What part of your religious practice includes baking cakes for a living? Because my religious practice — and I share this state’s dominant religion with most of those in the poll — involves things like personal prayer, scripture study, giving service, going on a mission, attending church and going to the temple.
Using my personal bias to refuse to offer my work skills to a potential client is not a religious practice and should not be upheld by the courts, any more than a Southern Baptist should be able to say it is his deeply-held religious belief that a Negro should not order food at his Mississippi lunch counter. We’ve already legislated this issue decades ago.
As an accountant, I have quite a few gay clients, and I was once contacted by a girl who said she worked as a stripper, and when people found out what she did for a living, they refused to help her file her taxes.
I’ve got news for you all: Their money is still as green as anyone else’s, and since I am not in the business of turning down paying clients, feel free to send the ones you don’t want my way. Just don’t cheapen my religious values by claiming our shared religion requires you to do so.
William Brough, Sandy