Are Christian colleges free to have whites only bathrooms? If not, why not and do you agree?
And here you point out the one flaw in my reasoning that I am well aware of but do not know how to overcome---and something the liberal justices on the SCOTUS have expressed concerns about. It is a legitimate concern. How do we protect the right of bakers, colleges, etc, to run themselves according to the dictates of their conscience without going down the road of whites only bathrooms, or other racist practices?
Answers that may not be satisfactory but do attempt to interact with the question:
1) The baker is not refusing to service gay couples or sell them cakes. The baker is not refusing to allow gay couples to so business at their bakery. The baker is refusing to decorate a cake with speech they find abhorrent. This is no different from the white supremacist demanding a black baker decorate a cake with white supremacist symbols. The black baker in refusing to do so is not refusing service to the racist, but specifically refusing to decorate a cake with speech they find morally abhorrent.
2) The Christian college is not refusing service to "transgender" people. The transgender people are free to go to the college as anyone is who believes in the values of the college. Back in the time of white's only bathrooms, blacks were not even allowed to do business with the merchant. They were forbidden from being in the store because they were black.
3) One's ethnicity or race is not the same as one's gender. Race and ethnicity are different from gender. There is no fundamental or innate difference between a black person and a white person, save color. Any difference between them is merely external. In other words---the black person may have different cultural tastes and practices, the white person other cultural tastes and practices, but those are not fundamental. If a black person adopts cultural practices of those around them, or the white person adopts the cultural practices of those around them, that does not change who they are.
There IS a fundamental difference between a man and a woman. This fundamental difference is the reason we have male only bathrooms and female only bathrooms. Gender IS innate and biological whether the person recognizes this or not. A biological female is a female whether they recognize it or not, and whether they identify with it or not, and whether they have surgery to change this or not. Thus, they have to use the bathroom that corresponds to their gender--at least at colleges that---do not throw reason, rationality and reality out the window, that is. Whatever personal tastes they have, cultural tastes, whatever the color of their skin or ethnicity, they are male or female.
People who argue about this leading down the path of "white's only bathrooms" make the mistake of assuming that gender and race are equivalent when, in fact, they are not. The reason for male/female bathrooms is not rooted in bigotry but the fundamental difference between males and females--and a respect for that difference and need for privacy due to that difference. The reason for "white's only" bathrooms was not due to some fundamental difference between whites' and blacks, but racism. But realize this works in the other direction too. What would stop blacks from having "black only" bathrooms, or "black only" businesses?
Though--a compromise would be a bathroom for males, famales, and for those who identify as neither or both or whatever--a bathroom for them.
For many people, discrimination against trans people is as destructive and as vile as discrimination against black people.
That is just the point: HOW is it discrimination to require a person to use the bathroom that corresponds to their biology? Why should we require businesses to enable their mental delusions? A biological woman is a woman. That she does not identify with her biology does not change this. That she may have had surgery to take on male attributes does not change this either. All you wind up with is a woman that looks like a man.
And yes, it is exactly the same issue. You would not expect the line that Black people can always go to a non-Christian college where no-one has a moral objection to sharing bathrooms, to be acceptable.
It is not the same as I have just explained.