In 2010, Just Cookies, an Indianapolis bakery, was asked to prepare some rainbow cupcakes for a National Coming Out Day event sponsored by a student group at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. This entirely routine request made national news when the bakery owners refused saying that preparing rainbow cupcakes could harm their daughters.

No state or local law provided a legal remedy for the students. It is legal in Indiana to deny service at a public accommodation to LGBT people. Had the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) been in force at that time, it would have failed the students as well. ENDA only bans discrimination in employment and it has religious exemptions that are so broad that leading LGBT legal groups will not support the legislation.

There are additional recent examples of discrimination in public accommodations against LGBT people by bakers, a florist, a printer, a photographer, B&Bs, event venues, and a Vermont inn. A Kentucky embroidery shop and an Oklahoma restaurant have stated publicly that they will not serve LGBT people. In April, Mississippi enacted a so called religious liberty law that is little more than a license for any business to discriminate against LGBT people.

While state laws helped some of the LGBT people who experienced this discrimination in public accommodations, none of them would have been helped by ENDA. Not one.

What the LGBT community needs and deserves are the same legal protections that are extended to every other person in this country and that can only be achieved with a comprehensive federal civil rights law that bans discrimination in public accommodations, employment, housing, federal programs, and education.

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