Many opponents of ordinances and statutes that mandate things like gay-wedding cake-baking cast their opposition as a matter of religious liberty. But such opposition isn’t just about religious liberty, it’s about liberty — period. The liberty of free people to choose with whom they will associate and do business.
What about ordinances and statutes that grant restroom choice to gender-confused persons, voyeurs, and predators. Isn’t that a matter of freedom of association? Only for the gender-confused, the voyeurs, and the predators. Most people don’t relish the invasion of a very private space by those who wish to “make a statement,” or worse.
Law-makers of various stripes — from the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court to the city council of Charlotte — seem to have lost sight of the deep wisdom that’s embedded in long-standing social norms. Whether the norm is the definition of marriage as a union of one man and one woman or the segregation of restrooms by (visible) gender, it serves a socially valuable function by encouraging constructive behavior (e.g., the rearing of children in a stable home environment with role models of both sexes) and discouraging destructive behavior (e.g., uninvited intimacy).
As I say, there’s more to it than religious liberty.
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