it's the principle of the thing

I'm pretty sure that most gay people would rather not coerce some god fearing baker to bake their cake, especially since there are plenty of places that advertise themselves as gay friendly, and I am sure that almost all bakers, even those who disapprove of Adam and Steve would bake them a cake because business is business,  I don't expect the law either way will change much that goes on in the daily life of gays and straights,

But it is the principle of the thing.  There is that pizzeria that proclaimed that they wouldn't serve gays, actually I think they later backed down to where they would serve them pies, but they wouldn't cater their weddings, and they brought down this firestorm of liberal outrage on their heads.  I think a bunch of people trashed them on their yelp page, and they claimed there were some death threats, though, as I have said, you would get death threats if you posted on a blog that, ahem, actual people read, that you thought George Washington was a handsome man.  Then people associated with Glen Beck's website, or whatever he has these days, got up a fund and I think they got up a quarter of a million dollars for the place.  At some point they closed, and now with a quarter of a million I imagine they will be retiring, but the news has moved on since then, so I haven't heard how that is going in the last week.

I think the whole thing has roots in the way restaurants in the south wouldn't serve blacks or let them stay in their hotels which was pretty hard on black people because whites owned almost everything,  Well you would think the free enterprise system would beat that injustice because some guy could open up a restaurant that would serve blacks and look at all the business he would get, except that I think no white people would go there and probably the guy would get beat up and his restaurant burnt down.  But once that system was broken black and white people eat together in restaurants in the south and nothing bad comes of it.

Something like that for the gays, back when we were kids their bars were all secretive and subject to being raided, and themselves, if they wanted to get along in society they had to pretend that they were straight, and now all the politicians are standing in line to get a place in the gay pride parade.

Oh yes, and of course when this controversy hit, as when any controversy hit, all the politicians leapt to their podiums to proclaim to their faithful.  A few posts back I had claimed that the tea party pols were all silent in this, and certainly the govs of Indiana and Arkansas backed off, but that holy trinity Cruz, Da Huck, and Santorum, have all weighed in on the side of that pizzeria.

All in all, I would have to say the whole thing is a bit of tempest in a teapot, but if I was a public figure I wouldn't dare say that lest I reap the whirlwind on my head,

I don't know about the city fathers of Cheboygan discouraging doctors from performing abortions but I have been doing a little googling and certainly your gov, and I assume his wrecking ball reps in the state legislature, have done plenty.  Mostly the usual stuff like a an abortion clinic can not be within so many miles of a school, and the doctors have to be registered with a hospital and they have to have this and that, and all of it in the name of making them safer, but with the intent of making it impossible for them to do business, and that's why some poor girl in the upper peninsula has to go the clothes hanger route or hitchhike down south.  And of course there is that finagling with the insurance also.

Yeah saltpeter, one of us should do some research as to how the rumor got started.  Oh wow, Snopes' explanation cites what you reported, the lack of sexual drive during boot camp, and the need to blame some external force and since they were already putting saltpeter in food to preserve it, I guess somebody put two and two together.  It's not hard to see how such a rumor would expand to include guys in college dorms.