Cakes for all you bigots

[harvey19]

So how would you enforce the law then in relation to discrimination then?[/quotegly

We are talking about baking a cake for goodness sake.

Get things into proportion.

I am sure other bakers would have baked one for them and included the slogan.

Why didn't they go to an homosexual baker if they felt so strongly about such matters and realised others did not agree with them ?

[Cyclone]

How do they know?

 

They don't unless the business is stupid enough to tell them.

 

Like "get out of my shop, we don't want {insert minority group here} in here".

 

---------- Post added 19-05-2015 at 15:24 ----------

 

What a load of bobbins ... no one should be made to do something they don't want to do. I'm sure there would've been plenty of other people willing to make the cake ... it wouldn't bother me a jot. It's only a cake for crying out loud ... no need to get all upset and call the police/get a solicitor (whatever).

 

I kind of see the point about the slogan.

 

But on the other hand if they simply refused to bake ANY cake for an openly gay person, then they should indeed be forced to bake it, and they should be prosecuted for discrimination.

[flamingjimmy]

I think that the judge summed it up well, she said:

 

"The defendants are entitled to continue to hold their genuine and deeply-held religious beliefs and to manifest them but, in accordance with the law, not to manifest them in the commercial sphere if it is contrary to the rights of others."

 

I don't see which rights of others their stance was contrary to.

 

People don't have a right to have any sort of cake they want made for them.

 

If some neo-nazis wanted my local bakery to make them a batch of swastika cupcakes I damn sure hope they'd refuse.

 

Whoops, totally godwinned myself! But I still think my point stands!

 

---------- Post added 19-05-2015 at 15:27 ----------

 

But on the other hand if they simply refused to bake ANY cake for an openly gay person, then they should indeed be forced to bake it, and they should be prosecuted for discrimination.

 

Speaking outside Belfast County Court after the ruling, Ashers general manager Daniel McArthur said his company was "extremely disappointed with the judgment".

 

"We've said from the start that our issue was with the message on the cake, not with the customer and that we didn't know what the sexual orientation of Mr Lee was, and it wasn't relevant either. We've always been happy to serve any customers who come into our shops.

 

"The ruling suggests that all business owners will have to be willing to promote any cause or campaign, no matter how much they disagree with it."

 

source

[Magilla]

"The ruling suggests that all business owners will have to be willing to promote any cause or campaign, no matter how much they disagree with it."

 

source

 

This is, IMV, the funamental mistake they have made. By baking the cake, they are in no way condoning or promoting the issue they take exception to. They're just making a cake.

[Cyclone]

I'd say that the ruling suggests that all business owners will have to be willing to print slogans that promote any cause or campaign that has a special legal status, no matter how much they disagree with it.

If someone asks my business to support something by printing banners I'll tell them to get lost, we don't print banners (for example).

And if a cake maker is asked to produce a slogan 'cake sucks' then they can refuse as the opinion that cake sucks has no special legal protection.

[JFKvsNixon]

I guess the question was framed a little wrong. I don't mean to ask whether you think they would fulfill the order or whether you would.

 

What I mean to ask is do you think in the hypothetical (though fairly plausible) situation raised by that question, that the lesbian t-shirt printer should be forced to make the 'homosexuality is an abomination' t-shirt by law?

 

My take on the subject is, "support gay marriage" is not a slogan aimed at insulting anyone else, but a slogan aimed at supporting a homosexual's rights. "Homosexuality is an abomination" is a slogan aimed at attacking the rights of a homosexual. So there is a difference between the two slogans.

 

It would be up to a court to see if the difference merited the lesbian printer being punished for not accepting the order, and it would be interesting to see how the case panned out.

[Magilla]

If someone asks my business to support something by printing banners I'll tell them to get lost, we don't print banners (for example).

 

Even if you did though, that doesn't mean you agree or in any way support the issue the banners are there to promote.

[flamingjimmy]

This is, IMV, the funamental mistake they have made. By baking the cake, they are in no way condoning or promoting the issue they take exception to. They're just making a cake.

 

Unless the man was gonna eat the cake all by himself without showing it to anyone else then in my opinion it absolutely is promoting the issue they take exception to.

 

I really think you're just completely wrong there, of course emblazoning one of their products with a slogan promoting a cause is promoting that cause, how could it not be?

 

---------- Post added 19-05-2015 at 15:40 ----------

 

refuse as the opinion that cake sucks has no special legal protection.

 

I was not aware that certain opinions have special legal protections.

 

That sounds dodgy as **** to me, a hierarchy of opinions, with regards to the law?

 

Surely not!

[harvey19]

Isn't all this about the legal profession making money ?

[sgtkate]

Am I the only non-Christian who disagrees with this ruling? (obviously loraward doesn't count because he's just a troll)

 

A business being forced to make a cake bearing a slogan the owners and employees strongly disagree with?

 

Dangerously illiberal.

 

If they refused to serve someone because they are gay, that's one thing. But that's not what happened, they just refused to make a cake bearing a slogan which they strongly disagreed with.

 

This is not equality, it's religious persecution.

 

---------- Post added 19-05-2015 at 14:11 ----------

 

 

I don't think in this case they were discriminating against any customers.

 

If a straight person had been the one to ask for a cake saying 'support gay marriage' they would have been refused too. It was what they wanted on the cake that got it refused, not who they were.

 

Interesting point of view that I'd not considered. I too found the ruling a bit difficult to understand. As you said, they weren't 'probably' discriminating against someone on the grounds of their sexual orientation, just didn't want to put that message on a cake. What would the law have said if they'd refused to put 'kill all Christians' on a cake? Who is being discriminated against then?