Comment 16 by ColdThinker

Sure. But if we ban religious, even consentual human sacrifice on private premises, why would it be a religious right to refuse a gay couple a lodging and possibly let them freeze to death on a cold night?

Why would you ban anything that is consentual? Would you outlaw suicide generally or just in the case of religious folk's doing it?

Does an 'private' individual have the right to refuse access to his house on a freezing cold night?

Or refuse a certain kind of medical treatment on religious grounds?

Refused by whom? On whom? Are the rights of a third party being infringed?

One of the most important functions of the government of a civilized country is to limit the freedoms of its citizens.

Yes, but only in cases where a person has his/her rights infringed by other citizens; otherwise govt.'s function should be to ensure the maximum amount of freedom possible.

My point is I criticize the American habit of using the word "freedom" as if it is a good thing by definition.

But the writer of the article obviously thinks that liberty is a good thing.

Any freedom has to be defined by constant dialogue and careful political discourse.

Only where the rights of third parties are involved.

Accepting simple political statements like "Attacking Freedom is Bad" produces exactly this kind of idiotic situations, like defending physical and mental violence as a religious liberty.

Physical violence should be an no-no. You'd have to elaborate on whiat you mean by 'mental violence'.

Just another brief point: the writer says that, "In a democratic society, in principle governed by reason,...." Since when does democracy have anything to do with the 'reason' of its citizens?! All democracy means is that each person's vote is of equal value to the vote of every other person, in relation to the issues to be decided by citizens, e.g. electing one's local MP or Senator. The 'reason' behind each person's decision to vote the way he does has nothing to do with democracy; frankly, it's nobody's business.