Majority of Americans support gay rights over religious freedom bills

[DeistPaladin]

However, there's a difference between equal protection under law and membership in a group which law singles out for special recognition. 

Perhaps I need further explanation here because I don't see how your "lanky" and "speaks with a drawl" examples apply. If someone is unqualified for a job because of certain characteristics (a 90 year old male actor applying for the Broadway role of Little Orphan Annie or a devout Muslim who refuses to serve alcohol that is applying to be a bartender), it's not actionable discrimination, I'm sure we can all agree. I'm not sure what that has to do with the topic since being gay doesn't preclude you from eating cake that you've paid for. 

It may also help you to know the law also deals with breach-of-contract issues. There are not, I can assure you, a hoard of gays looking to sacrifice their special day so they can ambush Christian bakers and force them to bake cakes for them. The problem is when a baker is contracted to make a wedding cake, finds out at the last minute that it's a gay wedding and backs out citing their religious beliefs. 

At that kind of last minute, you don't have the option of "just finding someone else" to do it. 

As a recently married man myself, I can assure you that the planning that goes into a relatively short event is quite involved. With so many things that can go wrong and the need to get everything right because you're hoping to only do this once in your lifetime, the last thing you want is someone who hates your guts handling a critical function of the special day, such as the cake or the photographer. However, the "religious freedom" bill makes the baker, photographer, whatever, untouchable if they back out at the last minute if they can cite a religious objection. 

I do take peeve to the women's and LGBT advocacies comparing themselves directly with the historical African-American plight. 

And again, nobody is saying that any one civil rights struggle is exactly like any other. Native Americans were murdered in unthinkable numbers. African Americans were enslaved and are still targeted by institutionalized racism. Women have been, and still are to some degree, second class citizens subject to rape culture. Jews were, and still are, targets in religious pogroms. Each struggle is different and civil rights is not some special prize awarded to a group that has suffered the most. 

The American Revolution, I believe, is an ongoing struggle with many milestones along the way. Emancipation, Trust-Busting, Suffrage, Desegregation and other struggles have all been battles in our efforts to form a more perfect union. Our founding fathers were flawed human beings who could only point the way. It's been up to us to complete that journey. That ongoing political war is not just about one group. Martin Luther King himself understood this and he fought not just for the rights of African Americans but for women and for all of the poor. 

their agenda doesn't possess the urgency the freedom bus riders had in 1961.

Civil Rights isn't invoked by some sort of threshold of injustice, oppression or suffering. Just because Jim Crow has been abolished doesn't mean there isn't much more work to do. There are more subtle forms of racism at work in our society (sometimes not so subtle) but that doesn't mean we dust off our hands and say we're done. Neither do we neglect injustice towards other groups just because there isn't the same degree of overt institutionalized discrimination against them. 

The important message of the 14th amendment, which itself is part of the as-yet unfulfilled promise of America, is that there should be no second class citizens at all, be it based on race, gender, creed, class or sexual orientation. And just because we've achieved a certain level of success toward that goal, such as "well, there's nothing on the law books officially", doesn't mean we say "they're not suffering like this group over here did so fuck 'em". Where there is injustice, we should seek to correct it. That's what "form a more perfect union" means to me, anyway. 

None of the grievance groups are interested in universal social justice or welfare, only in what they can garner for their own corners.

I need more elaboration here. As I can see, no one is asking for special privileges. Gays are asking for the same rights that everyone else has. I had a marriage with my wife without having to deal with a Christian baker who backed out at the last minute, refusing to serve an atheist wedding on the grounds of religious objections. I think we should have enjoyed the same day even if she and I had similar body parts at the groin. 

I owe you clarification.

 
You actually don't owe me anything but I appreciate the clarification. 

You may be assuming that I don't like persons of alternative sexualities. That's not true. 

I may have made some assumptions which I apologize for. I've heard the "I don't have a problem with what two freaks do but..." line and others by what I call "closet homophobes" so many times, not the least of which from former friends I haven't heard from since coming out as bisexual. On the plus side, I don't have to grit my teeth as I listen to their fag jokes that are followed by the lame backpeddling of "uh, not that there's anything wrong with that, of course". I'm just thankful that it turned out that my soul-mate had the right body parts for us to enjoy equal protection under the law. 

Please disregard any false assumptions I attributed to you as stemming from past experience and nothing to do with you. 

Failure to support items on the gay political agenda does not imply animosity toward gays. In fact, a person's sexuality is none of my business. I'm pleased to see some states passing gay marriage and adoption statutes, because these laws merely allow gays to do something nearly everyone else can do, and don't respect a defined gay identity group. So no problem.

I'm not nuts about the recent Indiana law either. I would prefer no law, but Gov. Pence fears a law in the opposite direction could be enacted and he chose to preempt that possibility.

As for political irrelevance, I'm already there. I have no money or power and make few decisions for others...  

G'Kar from Babylon 5 once put it so profoundly when he said the scripted line, "Our thoughts form the universe. They always matter." Michael Jackson sang about how if you want to make the world a better place, look at the "man in the mirror". No matter how insignificant we may feel we are because we have no multi-billion dollar PACs or lobbyists at our beck and call, our thoughts and words matter. 

The American Revolution requires nothing less.