We Are Not Gay Bakers

[Bazile]

Another one of these rulings

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-32791239

This is a bit odd though

//His party colleague David McIlveen tweeted: "Utterly sickened that a Christian owned business has been hauled over the coals for refusing to promote something that is not legal in NI."//

[Retrochic]

Ellipsis - If the customer who ordered the cake was not Gay (say the mother of the 'groom) and the baker refused, then the baker would not be refusing to serve someone Gay, but refusing to bake a cake to the requirements of a customer.

I'm fed up with Gay people being so precious, just get on with it like everyone else. No one these days cares if you are Gay but do care when you think you need special treatment and 'stress out' if you are not treated like spome precious princess.

[Baldric]

///Same-sex marriage was legalised in England, Wales and Scotland in 2014, BUT REMAINS ILLEGAL in Northern Ireland where it is recognised as a civil partnership.///

[andy-hughes]

Deskdiary - // ... ....but really, a refusal to bake a cake? //

The refusal did not involve baking the cake, it involved the refusal to decorate it with the slogan that the customer asked for, and that is where the legal transgression applies.

If you are in business, you do not get to say which parts of the law you will apply, and which parts you will excuse yourself from to comply with the law means you will act against your principles.

How would a legal system which offers - 'Everyone must obey the law ... unless they don't feel like it ...' last for?

[Ellipsis]

Retro, it cuts both ways. Remember the people who made a big deal of this were the bakers, so instead of ...

> I'm fed up with Gay people being so precious, just get on with it like everyone else. No one these days cares if you are Gay but do care when you think you need special treatment and 'stress out' if you are not treated like spome precious princess.

I'm fed up with religious people being so precious, just get on with it like everyone else [and decorate the cake like you would for anyone else, rather than making a big deal out of it]. No one these days cares if you are religious but do care when you think you need special treatment and 'stress out' if you are not treated like somebody above the law.

[mikey4444]

Deskdiary...this "proper" discrimination that you hanker after...how would the law understand what "proper" means, if it means different things to different people ?

The Law needs to be clear and unambiguous...it can't function by trying to please a capricious minority of people that like to use the excuse of religion to continue to discriminate against one group of people, over another.

You don't give freedom to some people, by taking it away from other people. The Law can't work that way, nor should we expect it to.

[Retrochic]

Ellipsis -you are wrong -it was the customer who made the big deal out of it not the Baker. The customer ran to the Equality Commission who sponsored the court case.

[sp1814]

Retrochic

Are you absolutely sure that absolutely no-one these days cares if someone is gay?

Have you ever put that to an Imam or Catholic priest?

I have a feeling they might disagree with you.

I fully support any act that throws light on bigotry and discrimination dressed up to look like religious observance.

And hand on heart - the moment Christians claim persecution, all I can think of are the gay teens and young adults who have attempted to take their own lives due to the insidious teachings of the church. I think of those teens who have been thrown out of their homes...and honestly, it leaves me feeling zero sympathy for those of 'faith'.

As it says in their book about the magic sky baby...you reap what you sow.

[Retrochic]

sp1814 I can understand what you are saying but this is about a cake with a cartoon puppet on it and sometimes things have to be taken in context.

[PankySmooch]

Jesus Christ, what next, ban fairy cakes?

[Ellipsis]

Retro, you mean I am wrong in your opinion. The ruling was also wrong in your opinion - but right in my opinion.

The baker made the big deal out of it by refusing to decorate a cake, which is what they're in business to do. The customer complained, it went to a ruling, the ruling found in favour of the customer. Gay rights trumps religious rights.

[Clanad]

Mikey, almost as an aside, do you not see a conflict with what you disagree with, i.e. the bakers refusal, when you state (thruthfully, I might add) "You don't give freedom to some people, by taking it away from other people. The Law can't work that way, nor should we expect it to."?

Here in the U.S. one often sees, especially in small cafe's, a sign near the entrance saying "No shoes, No shirt, No service"... would the owner's be in the wrong by refusing service to someone dressed thus?

Our problem is religious freedom is expressed in the First Amendment to our Constitution which, ironically, is melded within the same Amendment to freedom of speech, press and expression (ibid) "...Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

So, similar situations here are two-edged swords, so to speak, since, there's no similar Amendment or other content in the Constitution (as, I understand it, England and the U.K. have no such document) guaranateeing life style choices, such as homosexuality...

[joggerjayne]

// Are you absolutely sure that absolutely no-one these days cares if someone is gay?
Have you ever put that to an Imam or Catholic priest? //

The problem, is it not, is that this gay person has not "put it to an Imam or Catholic priest".

He has "put it" to a soft target ... a small baker, trying to make a living.

The gay community lived for decades being bullied by people who did not understand them, or sympathise with them. It would be such a shame if the gay community now gets a name for being bullies.

The real enemy are people like ... well, Imams, and hard line Catholics. Take the fight to them ... if you dare.

Don't waste time seeking publicity by picking on the little guy.

[Peter Pedant]

// "I am religious so I don't have to obey the law" //

some countries take religious freedom further than the UK
I think the rastafarians are allowed to smoke junk for religious reasons

The divinely libertarian Ian Paisley instituted the 'save us from sodomy' campaign

[Peter Pedant]

// It's the way some gays go out of their way to be confrontational that irks me. They well knew that this particular bakery was likely to refuse their order. That's why they went there. A lot of gays seem to love playing the I'm being discriminated against card. //

is there any evidence for this assertion DB - or is it something you have noticed in your particular group of frenz ?

[sp1814]

joggerjayne

Decades????

Try centuries, and you'd be nearer the mark.

[stuey]

Enough rhetoric; the customer was merely seeking his/her fifteen minutes of "fame" as promised by Andy Warhol.

[joggerjayne]

Okay, centuries, sp

A long time, anyway.

Although it hasn't always been that way, has it. The Greeks, and especially the philosophers, were very gay. Part of the conversation in Plato's Symposium suggests, essentially, that love between two men is somehow more spiritual and worthy than love between a man and a woman, which is viewed as rather base and vulgar.

Admittedly the Greek philosophers' view of the acceptable age limit was a slightly grey area, but they were all for gay love.