"Whatever..."

Here's an interesting meditation on where casuistry for political ends can get you:

Bush seems to believe that gay people shouldn’t face discrimination for being gay but should accept discrimination for getting married. If that’s really true, the logic should hold in other contexts: Christians shouldn’t face discrimination for being Christian, but they should accept a restriction of their rights when they open a store to the public. Of course, opening a bakery doesn’t implicate fundamental aspects of the Christian identity the way getting married implicates intrinsic elements of the gay identity. But who cares? With his carefully prepared statement, Bush elegantly laid the groundwork for a firm distinction between legal protections for identity and conduct. Now all he has to do is move it to the proper setting.