Trying to tease out where I stand on this - I get that a business owner can't, for example, say "No blacks or Jews in my shop". It's bigoted and ugly and can't be defended.
But let me pose this question - if, in one of the current examples, the baker says "I don't want to make a cake for a Lesbian couple's wedding because I object to the idea of gay marriage on religious/moral/personal grounds". That is not the same as saying "Lesbians can't come into my bakery and buy baked goods".
My personal example - I'm an OBGYN. I deliver babies for a living. Abortion is legal in this country. But my personal beliefs don't allow me to perform that procedure. And the law is on my side - I can't be compelled to perform any medical procedure that I find morally or ethically unacceptable. That doesn't mean that I don't take care of women who have had abortions. It means that I won't perform one.
Yes - I get that baking a cake and performing an abortion are different (not suggesting any parity there) - but is the underlying principle of who gets to choose what they do/don't similar?
As you've recognized, preventing life and providing a cake for a happy couple who have chosen to spend their lives loving one another isn't exactly the same. One should not be able to cite a
kind of person as a "moral objectification" for doing business.
Everyone keeps using the wedding cake baker/wedding photographer example to support this law. Setting aside for a moment that I think passing this whole thing off as a religious issue is a farce (how many bills were introduced this year to outlaw heterosexual divorce to protect the sanctity of marriage?), this legislation is nowhere near that specific and far more reaching than simply pertaining to businesses who may find themselves asked to contribute in some form to gay weddings.
If I understand it correctly, some podunk rural bar in Indiana could now legally hang a
"No Gays" sign in the window, or throw the "town gay" out of the diner while other bigoted patrons look on in approval. This is extremely, extremely scary stuff, especially in smaller communities where an openly (or suspected) homosexual individual may find themselves in an extreme minority and surrounded by a hive-minded white, heterosexual, anti-gay community. Legally supporting such bigotry only reinforces these people's belief that their discrimination is both morally and socially acceptable.