National Review explains what the proposed law is designed to do.

Excerpt:

In response to a number of lawsuits in which such providers of wedding-related services as bakers and photographers have been threatened with conscription into participating in same-sex ceremonies to which they object on religious grounds, Arizona’s state legislature has adopted a law under which businesses that decline to provide such services will enjoy protection.

It is perhaps unfortunate that it has come to this, but organized homosexuality, a phenomenon that is more about progressive pieties than gay rights per se, remains on the permanent offensive in the culture wars. Live-and-let-live is a creed that the gay lobby specifically rejects: The owner of the Masterpiece Cakeshop in Colorado was threatened with a year in jail for declining to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding. New Mexico photographer Elaine Huguenin was similarly threatened for declining to photograph a same-sex wedding. It is worth noting that neither the baker nor the photographer categorically refuses services to homosexuals; birthday cakes and portrait photography were both on the menu. The business owners specifically objected to participating in a civic/religious ceremony that violated their own consciences.

And the so-called liberals answer: “To hell with your consciences.”

In T. H. White’s The Once and Future King, the nature of totalitarianism is captured in the motto “Everything not forbidden is compulsory.” Gay marriage has made the sprint from forbidden to compulsory in record time; the day before yesterday, a homosexual marriage was a legal impossibility — and today it is a crime to sit one out.

Gay Americans, like many members of minority groups, are poorly served by their self-styled leadership. Like feminists and union bosses, the leaders of the nation’s gay organizations suffer from oppression envy, likening their situation to that of black Americans — as though having to find a gay-friendly wedding planner (pro tip: try swinging a dead cat) were the moral equivalent of having spent centuries in slavery and systematic oppression under Jim Crow. Their goal is not toleration or even equal rights but official victim-group status under law and in civil society, allowing them to use the courts and other means of official coercion to impose their own values upon those who hold different values.

Which is to say, what is regrettable here is not Arizona’s law but the machinations that have made it necessary. It seems unlikely that those religious bakers and photographers were chosen at random, or that their antagonists will stop until such diversity of opinion as exists about the subject of gay marriage has been put under legal discipline.

That’s a very short and sweet explanation of the law, and what led up to it.

On the one hand, we have a citizen who is offended at being refused a product or a service. The remedy is for them to go next door and get the product or service from someone else. Is that hard? On the other side of the case are Christians with a Constitutional right to religious liberty. Apparently, it is now OK for people to trample on Constitutional rights if they feel offended and have to go next door for something they want. 

Look at it another way. Whose is forcing their values on whom? If the gay couple has to leave the store and go somewhere else, are they being forced by the state through trials and punishments to accept the traditional definition of marriage? Hell no. But Christians who are dragged in front of courts, forced to pay legal fees for both parties, forced to apologize, force to pay fines, and forced to participate in something they oppose are having someone else’s views forced on them. It used to be that the gay activists talked about tolerance. Where is their tolerance now? Where is their rainbow of diversity now? It’s very important to understand that the people on the gay rights side do not recognize Constitutional rights, and they are not tolerant of other people’s views. And they are willing to use the power of the government to force people to celebrate their sexuality.

An article by Ryan T. Anderson explains the problem in National Review.

Excerpt:

For years now, a central argument of those in favor of same-sex marriage has been that all Americans should be free to live and love how they choose. But does that freedom require the government to coerce those who disagree into celebrating same-sex relationships?

A growing number of incidents show that the redefinition of marriage and state policies on sexual orientation have created a climate of intolerance and intimidation for citizens who believe that marriage is the union of a man and a woman and that sexual relations are properly reserved for marriage. Now comes government coercion and discrimination. Laws that create special privileges based on sexual orientation and gender identity are being used to trump fundamental civil liberties such as freedom of speech and the free exercise of religion.

Let’s see specific examples:

In addition to the well-known examples of Christian adoption and foster-care agencies that have been forced to stop providing those services because they object to placing children in same-sex households, the examples below show how government has penalized citizens trying to run their businesses in accordance with their beliefs.

[…]The case of Elaine Huguenin and her husband, Jon, is perhaps the best-known example of violations of religious liberty at the state level… the Huguenins run Elane Photography, a small business in Albuquerque, N.M. In 2006, the couple declined a request to photograph a same-sex commitment ceremony…

[…]Elane Photography didn’t refuse to take pictures of gay and lesbian individuals, but it did refuse to photograph a ceremony that ran counter to the owners’ belief that marriage is the union of a man and a woman (a belief that New Mexico law endorses). Other photographers in the Albuquerque area were more than happy to photograph the event.

But in 2008, the New Mexico Human Rights Commission ruled that the Huguenins, by declining to use their artistic and expressive skills to communicate what what occurred at the ceremony, had discriminated based on sexual orientation. The commission ordered them to pay $6,637.94 in attorneys’ fees. The ruling cited New Mexico’s human-rights law, which prohibits discrimination in “public accommodations” (that is, “any establishment that provides or offers its services . . . or goods to the public”) based on race, religion, and sexual orientation — among other protected classes.

And another:

In early 2013, two women, Rachel Cryer and Laurel Bowman, asked the Oregon bakery Sweet Cakes by Melissa to bake a wedding cake for their same-sex commitment ceremony. Although bakery owners Melissa and Aaron Klein consistently had served all customers on a regular basis, they asserted that this request would have required them to facilitate and celebrate a same-sex relationship — which would violate their religious belief that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. (Oregon law defines marriage in the same way.)

Soon afterward, Cryer and Bowman filed a complaint under the Oregon Equality Act of 2007, which prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation. During an investigation by Oregon’s Bureau of Labor and Industries, bureau official Brad Avakian commented: “The goal is to rehabilitate. For those who do violate the law, we want them to learn from that experience and have a good, successful business in Oregon.”

In January, the agency issued a ruling that held that the Kleins violated Oregon’s sexual-orientation law when they declined to bake the cake.

Melissa and Aaron Klein faced increasing ridicule for their unwillingness to violate their beliefs. Sweet Cakes by Melissa came under threats, vicious protests, and boycotts. The Kleins, who have five children, reportedly received hundreds of phone calls and letters, including death threats to the family. Fearing for their safety, the Kleins decided to close the doors of their small business in September 2013 and operate from an in-home bakery. In the meantime, the family still has to deal with the Labor Commission’s conclusion that they violated Oregon’s law. The case is likely to proceed to an administrative law judge.

And another:

A similar situation occurred when a judge in Colorado — a state that in 2006 constitutionally defined marriage as the union of a man and a woman — decided that Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, violated the law when he declined to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding reception.

In 2012, a same-sex couple received a marriage license in Massachusetts and asked Phillips to bake a cake for a reception back home in Denver. On the basis of his faith, Phillips declined to create a wedding cake: “I don’t feel like I should participate in their wedding, and when I do a cake, I feel like I am participating in the ceremony or the event or the celebration that the cake is for.” The couple obtained a wedding cake, one with rainbow-colored filling, from another local bakery.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a complaint against Masterpiece Cakeshop with the state, alleging violations of Colorado’s public-accommodation law. Administrative Law Judge Robert N. Spencer ruled against the bakery on December 6, 2013, concluding that Phillips violated the law by refusing service to the two men “because of their sexual orientation.”

Phillips objected to this characterization and responded that that he would happily sell the couple his baked goods for any number of occasions, but baking a wedding cake would force him to express something that he does not believe, violating his freedom to run his business in step with his faith.

And another:

On March 1, 2013, longtime customers Roger Ingersoll and Curt Freed met with Arlene’s Flowers and Gifts shop owner Barronelle Stutzman to request that she arrange the flowers for their same-sex wedding ceremony. Washington State had redefined marriage the previous year. Stutzman respondedthat she could not accept the job because of her “relationship with Jesus Christ” and her belief that marriage is between one man and one woman.

Acting on a complaint filed by the two men, Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed suit against Stutzman, contending that she had violated the state’s sexual-orientation law. Ferguson seeks a $2,000 fine and a court order forcing Barronelle to violate her conscience by using her artistic talents to celebrate a same-sex relationship.

The situation is so bad, that Arizona has had to pass a law to protect the religious liberty of people who don’t want to celebrate gay marriage, a law which is universally opposed by our leftist mainstream media.

So how did we come to this? Well, I think when the debate over gay rights started, many Christians were happy to let gay people live how they wanted to and love who they wanted to and have ceremonies in churches that would have them. But now we are seeing that the gay agenda is much more about redefining marriage for everyone, and compelling assent to the new definition of marriage by force. What is striking to me is how easy secularists find it to strip religious people of their rights using the power of government when it suits them. And to go after their children in the public schools, too, at taxpayer expense. Even these state-run persecutions of Christians in “Human Rights Commissions” is at taxpayer expense. Christians are paying secularists in the government to punish them for being faithful Christians.

Let’s just weigh the damage in these cases. On the one hand, you have gay couples who are told no, feel bad, and then find another business to do what they want. On the other hand, you have the government dragging Christians into court, excoriating them, fining them thousands of dollars, making them apologize and them forcing them to violate their consciences or close their businesses. Who is being intolerant here? Who is forcing their view on others and forcing them to act against their core beliefs?

You would think that we would have learned the lessons of the 20th century – not to discriminate against people because of their religion, not to use the power of the state to force people to act against their consciences. But sadly, we have not learned that lesson. The very people who cry “tolerance” are the ones doing it, too.