Discrimination under the banner of freedom is on the rise again.

How, you may well ask, did a dispute over pizza and cake lead to a question about the nature of freedom? Food and for that matter, drink havent exactly played a leading role in the construction of the so called free world, but theyve always been lurking in the background. There was the Boston Tea Party. Let them eat cake, tower-haired posho Marie Antoinette probably didnt say. Ich bin ein Berliner [a doughnut], JFK definitely did say. This time around, freedom is being called into question at a pizzeria in Indiana and a bakery in Belfast.

Last year, a Christian-owned bakery refused, kind of predictably, to make a cake that celebrated same-sex marriage. Finally, last month, the discrimination case brought against Ashers Baking Company went to court. Meanwhile Northern Irelands Democratic Unionist Party have been happily beavering away at some legislation that would protect businesses exactly like Belfasts most reactionary confectioner from having to relinquish their religious principles to the evil Gay Agenda. Thats to say, the DUP want to officially legalise discrimination against LGBT people by businesses.

Also last month, owners of a pizzeria in the American Midwest whined about being persecuted into niceness. The owner of Memories Pizza in Indiana isnt just rubbish at coming up with restaurant names, shes also quite rubbish at not being bigot. And the fact that she thinks a gay couple would allow somewhere called Memories Pizza to cater their big day certainly hints at her never even met an actual homosexual. Whats more, fictional Indiana stateswoman and friend ogays Leslie Knope would most likely be ashamed of the (now amended) corresponding religious freedom bill which threatened to legally entrench anti-gay discrimination in that state.

Aside from being small businesses run by even smaller minded people, what the UK bakery and US pizzeria have in common is their dependence on discrimination in the guise of freedom. In several US states, religious freedom bills are threatening to override anti-discrimination ones. The idea that business owners should be free not to accommodate LGBT people, on moral grounds, is right at libertarianisms core. The spate of religious freedom bills are an important reminder that this is a political philosophy that favours the rights of bullies over their victims. Its about the right to shoot over the right not to be shot and the right to be an utter bastard over the right to not have to suffer utter bastards.

Right-leaning LGBT people drawn to libertarianism for its supposed social liberalness, especially those voting in next years US presidential election, need to take a much closer looks at whose interests Republican senators like Rand Paul represent. Paul, a reasonably hardcore libertarian and presidential hopeful, is no proponent of gay rights. In a 2013 TV interview, when asked about his position on gay rights, Paul said, I dont really believe in rights based on your behaviour. Except, of course, when it comes to the behaviour of gun owners. Or the behaviour of racists and homophobes. Republican in not giving a fuck about gay rights shocker isnt going to appear on any front pages soon, but its essential that libertarianism isnt seen as the cuddly (as cuddly as anything inspired by Ayn Rand can be) sort of conservatism.

Bryan Fischer, head of the fundamentalist Christian American Family Association, recently tweeted that something called Big Gay is trying to restrict religious freedoms. Big Gay. Like Big Oil, or Big Pharma. I hope Im not alone in finding this new term for the gay agenda more precious than a hedgehog in a tutu. And Id personally like to thank Fischer for giving me the opportunity to tell people, I work for Big Gay. It sounds so much better than, I lie in bed writing down words, eating Mini Cheddars and trying to masturbate as little as humanly possible.

The fact is though that Big Gay exists. And thank fuck for that. Freedom to discriminate is a funny sort of freedom. Id like to say its the kind that could only exist in a country where you can buy ammunition from supermarkets, but we have a fair bit of it in the UK too, as proven by the Belfast gay cake debacle. Meanwhile, LGBT activist group All Out have nearly reached their goal of 300,000 signatures for a petition aimed at blocking the DUPs proposed anti-gay amendment. Nice work, Big Gay.