That cake maker should appeal that case in Colorado! That's crap. There's no way I would be forced to do something I do not believe in. I believe to each there own, if you wanna be gay more power to you, but I expect you to respect my right to be straight. You cannot tell me this couple could not find a gay cake maker in Colorado. Seriously, that is too far, forcing a business to restructure for a market they do not wish to target? I find this sickening, one step closer to communism.

Sounds like the club needed a sign in the locker room, "No Nude Loitering" or something more clever if the management were concerned about the overt gay meat market atmosphere.
Bottom line is use common sense and respect the rights of others. In my opinion,no one, regardless of gender or sexual preference, should be purposefully offending others in a private club, but the owners of the business should not be told by government edict what rules are appropriate. Some actions that are appropriate in your private bath are inappropriate in a health club by most people. The club owners in this case chose a "hands off" policy and let the customers decide. That is great. If the management had chosen to be more strict with those who thought of the club as a meat market that would also be great. The customers have a right to choose where to go, but not to force their morality on the owner or the other patrons.

I don't care what Penn says. He is just another person with an opinion, and I have more respect for people here than for Penn. He is an entertainer, like Rush Limbaugh et al, and more likely to be a propaganda tool. In comparison, I have much more respect for George Carlin. Penn, if you are here anonymously, I mean no disrepect ;^)

You cannot have freedom of association without the right to disassociate. If a privately held business owner loses business because of discrimination let the market take care of it. The government should stay out of it. The supporters of Jim Crow laws were those that wished to discriminate and use the government to do so. They were upset that some businesses were catering to everyone and taking business from them. The laws were unjust and the government should not have been on either side. The market would penalize those that discriminated and reward those that didn't. Without government support those businesses that suffered losses had to change their business practices or suffer the market consequences. If you do not like a business's practices you are free to discriminate against them by not patronizing their establishment.

I agree, this has always been my viewpoint. The gays try to make it something like or equivalent to a civil rights march, and the zealots on the other side make it sound like the world will crumble if a gay person walks into the wedding cake store.

Businesses have always had the right to refuse service, when I was a kid it was "no shirt, no shoes, no service!". Now I see young girls in the summer with so little on they might as well be naked. Is it disruptive if they walk around a crowded shopping mall like that? Yeah, and it might draw a level of risk of violence or something that isn't welcome to a shopkeep or something (I'm just speculating). Does the coffee shop implode because the girl with a Brazilian string bikini with dental floss up the butt crack implode because she walked in to get a coffee on the way to the beach? Probably not.

There are varying levels I'm saying, I'm sure.

Here's an example - I used to work in downtown Sacramento, and was a member of a very upscale private health club. Private locking lockers (full locker room style ones) for every member, they did your laundry so you didn't have to carry a gym bag or anything, fresh disposable razors / toiletries provided after your shower, and its where I even learned to really appreciate Pinnaud after shave lotion. Each (mens/womens) locker room had its own steam bath, sauna, and a spa the size of a typical residential swimming pool.

Only one flaw, it was really frequented by the gays... not always, but certain / days or evenings, my gay-dar went off in the locker room. You'd walk through the door in the men's locker and there is 'Hans' or whatever, completely naked with his junk out, standing by the front door shooting the breeze with Larry while shaving. Straight guys put a towel around their waist to stand & shave or something - not the gays, they want to advertise their 'assets'.

Then you had the gay couple hanging nude in the spa like it's a private bathtub for two at home... etc.

I only went at lunch during the day, so I never had an issue, but on a couple of times I stopped in after work when 'that crowd' was there, and I was very uncomfortable. Both because I'm not into watching that, but also because I wouldn't want to be a spare-wheel at a straight-couple's date #3 either.

Here's my point, in some kinds of professional services - I would lump that one as one of them, the business might be detrimental by the loss of other paying customers. They didn't lose me as a customer, when I stopped working downtown it just wasn't worth the trip every day, so I moved to another club, but nothing is even close to their level of service. But, if I were only looking for an evening club to use, at the time, I would have dropped that one promptly.

My wife had the same experience, she was being hit on regularly in the women's locker for a muff-diving job in the women's spa. She doesn't miss the place either, other than the service level of the employees & the facility.

I'm sure 85% keep their hands to themselves, but there is that small minority - the ones that need to be naked in chaps or whatever on gay pride day - etc, the do act like that in public and can make others uncomfortable. I'm sure women experience the jerk-factor of some men, but at least they get used to it growing up.

Not an easy answer, but in my example, the gym would have probably had a better business & membership base if they were able to weed-out the ones that didn't play well with others (not all gays, just the obnoxious ones).

If I've talked about it to people that have also had memberships, the comment they make is always "lots of gays there". No, it wasn't in the gay district, etc., actually only a couple of blocks from the California Capitol in the government district.

Well put. My guess it is a whoops on the part of Penn.

I'd like to give him the oops but it does point out the libertarian flaw of refusing to admit the need for a philosophical basis for the freedom we so desire

I find the entire discussion SERIOUSLY laughable. If those on the Religious Right would simple redefine their issue from religious freedom to FREEDOM; while those on the Left redefine their issue from gay rights to INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS; then once it became understood that the right to one's life is our ONLY right, with our right to property its only material manifestation, then together we could all support our right to our own lives; while we pursued the JOY OF LIVING.

Penn is just awesome. This is just a woops.

I agree with him. The people who refuse business to gay people are medieval ding-a-lings. However, the government has no business legislating against any ding-a-lings.

Penn is allowed an oops

I think that the article sums it up rather succinctly. Further, I suspect that it's one of the reasons that we're so roundly hated across the globe.

Disappointing.