I read Pauline Warren’s Feb. 16 letter “Following one’s belief is punished,” decrying that an Oregon couple, who own a bakery, may lose their business because they refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple because of their religious beliefs. What Warren misses is that we all have the absolute right to our personal beliefs, religious or otherwise, but if we enter the public world of commerce then it is incumbent on us to serve all customers who come to us for service.
Does she forget that many business people in the South believed that it was perfectly all right to deny services to African-Americans because they sincerely believed that God was for segregation? The law did not try to change these folks’ personal beliefs, but as they were in the public world of commerce it insisted that they provide services to all comers.
Finally, I’ll remind Warren that Jesus made only one addition to the Ten Commandments by saying, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another.”
Dick Lee
Vancouver
