Freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom from consequences.
Right, for the most part, as it applies here in America, it's freedom from Government censorship. However "Speech" is ironially not the best wording. It's Expression, and while I'm not going to call Baking an Art, bakers can be artists, and when you get to the Wedding cake level, we're basically talking mixed media sculpture in flour, and fondant.
That's why i'm siding with the odious bigoted, fundementalist homophobes on this one. They're in the right, no need to be assholes about it, but I'm a writer. An artist, and opinionated asshole with an agenda in identity politics. I paint, and sculpt in words, so forcing a baker to make a cake that's against their Artistic capabilities, even if it's putting 2 brides, or 2 grooms on top, even if it's for all the wrong reasons, is not something I can support.
It would be the same thing as the government telling me that I can't write a story about a girl transitioning to a young man. Even if nobody wants to read it, on any or no grounds, I can't write straight vanilla erotica. It's not against my religion, it's against my identity. I'm pathologically incapable of it.
There are federal employment laws in the workplace, that prohibit age, sex, race, and religious discrimination, but those don’t apply here.
Right, they're not employees, in fact the gay couple are the Employers, even though it's a temporary contract. So honestly, this is a case of Sexual Harassment. Going into their work place (The bakery) and forcing something homosexually explicit (2 brides, or 2 grooms on a wedding cake) onto people they know, for a fact this is emotionally Triggering for. I don't like it, but that's the case.
Sexual abuse.