Why do I oppose hate-crime laws?

This is why.

So in Seattle a person can legally be compelled to accept and celebrate homosexuality and gay marriage. It doesn't surprise me; stuff like this has been going on across the border in Canada for years. It was inevitable it would eventually diffuse southward and find a receptive audience among the closet totalitarians that run most large American cities.

What surprises me is the odd passivity of religious conservatives in the face of this blatant assault on religious freedom. Most simply shrug their shoulders, or solemnly intone that this is a sign of the "last days". Fighting back seems to be their last option, and even that they tend to do rather clumsily. It usually takes the form of complaining to their elected officials, most of whom could care less in non-election years, and couldn't muster the political courage to repeal such laws anyway (for some silly reason, most evangelicals still believe that the institutions of government and society are on their side).

No, there's a more effective option. Now that Seattle has decreed businesses cannot discriminate even if it is against their beliefs, every evangelical congregation in NW Washington should find a copy of the Seattle "pink pages", pick out a gay-oriented printer, go in groups of two or three, and request the printer make posters that say "Jesus is Lord" or "Homosexuality is an abomination". When the printer refuses, file a complaint with the city. After dealing with several hundred of such complaints, city officials might be more amenable to changing the ordinance.

Of course it would not be pretty. And it might require years of litigation to eliminate the ordinance. But it would be far more effective than doing nothing, which is what most religious conservatives are wont to do when facing attack from the gay Left.