‘Gay Cake’ case now going back to court

Gareth Lee was not discriminated against. They did not refuse service because he is gay. I'm a married, heterosexual woman- they would have refused to ice that message for me too.

FFS. The ECHR was put in place after the holocaust to prevent its like happening again, not to secure the rights of massive whiners to cake.
What have we become?

It's also quite deliberate.

many people actually think the purpose of protections of rights, hate speech, etc, is to compel belief and even to compel expression of belief.

Critical thinking should be taught as a matter of course, widely and rigorously.

The point missing on this thread is really quite something!

I read a book about foreigners in Nazi Germany recently and the parallels with the attempt to compel speech now are striking.
Just say it to keep your job.
Just say it to be polite, you don't have to mean it.
Why not salute, it's just like wearing a hat in church.

Believing that marriage is a sacred sacrament between a woman and a man doesn’t mean you think same sex couples shouldn’t exist, FFS.

Jesus, this thread is full of the hard of thinking.

Still waiting for an swer, early. Do you really think that the entire thread can’t see you skirting this one? Do you think that by posting essays you’ll come across as the voice of reason? Dream on.

I've just read this thread and I'm really scared at the totalitarian instincts on show. Compelled speech is a nail in the coffin of democracy.

I am neither American nor a lawyer but as I understand it Twitter and other social media sites are a special case and there is argument raging over them in the US because of the differences in how laws apply to telecommunication networks and how they apply to publications.

Yes, this is just the kinds of thing I was thinking, we consider telecommunications to have a kind of special status, where there is a need to have greater neutrality than in most kinds of business. But making rules around that has to be done with a lot of careful consideration.

Stavvers (Zoe Stavri) opposed gay marriage because she opposes all marriage. She may be an AWA and trans privilege activist but she is not opposed to same biological sex couples existing.

I know a few homosexuals who are fine with marriage but don't particularly support gay marriage. It's not that unusual. I know gay man who is a Catholic monk who has very orthodox views, and no, it's not because he is self-hating.

It's strange how such a narrow set of perspectives are now considered acceptable, and anything else is considered hatred or a "phobia" often without even bothering to understand the thought process.

It's got to be related to this desire to narrow the right to belief and free speech.

It's why the Catholic Church doesn't have to employ female priests.

And isn't required to perform same-sex weddings, and can refuse to perform a wedding if one or both of the couple is a divorcee with a living ex-spouse, and can refuse to perform weddings if one or both of the couple are not Catholic, and can refuse to perform a wedding if the priest suspects that one of the couple is trans[1]...

[1] Which is an interesting GRA exemption, because the priest is allowed to judge by eye and doesn't have to take the birth certificate as biological truth.

I'm surprised he is taking this so far - that cake will be well stale by now

So given that gay marriage is, as you say still not available in NI, if there were a campaign to maintain the status quo would you be happy to be forced to make a cake expressing the opinion that the idea of gay marriage is sinful?

That is a good point. They were being asked to write a slogan they don't support and in support of an act which isn't illegal.

Less emotive than saying "sinful" but what if the slogan was "marriage is a sacrament between a man and a woman only " would EarlyWalker et al be happy to write that?

We start giving weight in law to ‘religious beliefs’ in order to discriminate and who knows where it’ll take us.

We do give weight in law to religious beliefs. It's why the Catholic Church doesn't have to employ female priests.

The only way it's not insane is if it's a serious effort to set some kind of cake related precedent to end freedom of belief as a legal right against LGBT.

And even then this shouldn't be allowed.

Exactly. This is really important precedent in many other areas of law.

I am required at work to treat all staff and students with fairness and dignity, which is as it should be. We were offered rainbow lanyards a few months back and I and several of my colleagues refused them for various reasons. At the moment, my employer is not attempting to compel anyone to wear a pride flag or trans flag lanyard, nor put pronouns in our email signatures. If they tried, this case would be one of the arguments I would use to assert that we cannot be compelled to do these things, because they express a political view that we may not agree with and are hence forced speech.

When you are not only prevented from saying your own views (which is sometimes needed at work for the comfort of others: I would not feel safe or valued if my male colleagues were endorsing rape at work), but are forced to express agreement with the views of others, you are being grievously abused. When the law sanctions this abuse, you have a totalitarian state.

Twitter might be an example

I am neither American nor a lawyer but as I understand it Twitter and other social media sites are a special case and there is argument raging over them in the US because of the differences in how laws apply to telecommunication networks and how they apply to publications.

As far as I can make out Twitter, Facebook etc fall under telecoms and thus enjoy the protections of telecoms but the quid pro quo of that is supposed to be strict neutrality which they are not observing.

Again, I'm not an expert so if anyone else has a better understanding I'm happy to be enlightened.

I'm really struggling to understand why some posters are not terrified about the implications of compelled speech.

This case isn't even about preventing telling the truth. It is compelling people to write something they don't believe.

What about all the examples from history about religious persecution?

On a lighter note I may have laughed out loud at "we do wax balls but are refusing to do yours solely because we/I don’t like transwomen’ that would not be acceptable either."
They don't wax balls full stop.

• it’s to do with the concept of...

So early, you’re a baker, and someone comes to you who wants the slogan “women don’t have penises” on a cake.

Do you make the cake?

You’re shirking the question because you don’t seem to be able to comprehend that freedom from compelled speech has to apply to everyon, regardless of if one agrees with them or not.

I don’t want people to be compelled to say, write, speak or think in certain prescribed ways. But the fact that lots of people don’t think that’s important really worries me. The cake is a wedge driven by authoritarians- the fact of gay marriage is neither here nor there. That said, Your mind would be blown by my gay friends who passionately disapprove of gay marriage. That’s a whole other thread though (it’s do do concept of “aping” heterosexuality and losing a sense of gay history that is comfortable with being transgressive, not conforming).

Not supporting gay marriage doesn't mean you're homophobic.

No of course it doesn’t

Stavvers (Zoe Stavri) opposed gay marriage because she opposes all marriage. She may be an AWA and trans privilege activist but she is not opposed to same biological sex couples existing.

Many barbers refuse to cut women's hair, even women with short hair who want the same sort of cut men get

In the UK there’s no such thing as a ‘Christian business’ it holds no legal standing

Every church, chapel, cathedral, Christian faith school, Christian holiday centre, etc, etc. There are exceptions for belief organisations, including Christian ones, within the Equality Act.

No it’s not that. I think they are happy for the law to discriminate against people with religious views because they personally don’t have any.

This is what I think it is. It's kind of shocking, but I've realised that many people actually think the purpose of protections of rights, hate speech, etc, is to compel belief and even to compel expression of belief.

I do think there is some question about special categories of businesses, or sometime special kinds of communications. Particularly ones which hold monopolies or are essential to public discourse. Twitter might be an example, though it isn't treated that way, but sometimes newspapers have been, or banks, that kind of thing.

Bakeries - not so much.

I was a hairdresser and I cut white peoples hair but refused to cut Indian peoples hair would that be discrimination?

Possibly. Would you be discriminating against them because of you didn't like brown people, or because you are not trained to cut their type of hair? (I'm thinking here of the specialist salons for black women, the staff of whom might not be trained to cut or style white people's hair, and so should be entitled to turn white people away.)

I think so, so if I was a baker and I would be willing to make a cake that says support marriage, but not willing to include the word gay would that be discrimination?

No, because you are refusing the message, not the customer.

In the UK there’s no such thing as a ‘Christian business’ it holds no legal standing.

Really?
www.gov.uk/types-of-school/faith-schools