Let us return briefly to the case that began this book's inquiry – the husband-and-wife photography agency that refused on moral grounds to shoot a same-sex commitment ceremony. It is safe to say that state-coerced photography in violation of conscience elicits nowhere near the amount of public sympathy as state-coerced military combat in violation of conscience does. If Daniel Seeger is the poster boy for the sanctity of conscience, the Huguenins appear, to many, to be misguided zealots who should seek another line of work or, at best, unfortunate but unavoidable casualties in the noble struggle for human equality. As one noted civil rights scholar remarked, “if you run a wedding photography service, even if you don't like the fact that those two gays are getting married, you'd better have someone on your staff who will take those pictures.”

As this book has tried to show, these responses derive from a superficial conception of conscience, one that lacks the depth and breadth of conscience's relational dimension. Suggesting that the Huguenins can honor their consciences by keeping their moral beliefs out of the marketplace ignores the external orientation of conscience, discernible from its earliest invocations as moral belief applied to conduct. Respecting conscience as an internalized set of beliefs does not authentically respect conscience.

Similarly short sighted is the idea that the Huguenins can avoid the problem by hiring an employee who is willing to shoot events that their own moral convictions do not permit them to shoot.