US Supreme Court sides with Christian graphic designer who refused to create same-sex wedding website

I said the cake was supposedly forced speech because of the message written on it.

If that's "forced speech", (which is doubtful imo), then as I say I think you can make the same argument for hiring a venue. You are being forced to help someone spread a message, and possibly provide advertising if that's part of your service.

It is the speech not the provision service or goods that is at issue.
Speech attemptedly compelled by the force of law.

e.g. to be polite to someone your disagree with is fine, but they have no right to compel you to use their language if you disagree with it e.g. pronouns

They were prepared to produce the cake ffs! The cake itself wasn’t forced speech!

If a Muslim centre rented a hall to the public then they couldn’t stop a Christian group renting it for an Easter service. The Muslim Centre itself could not be forced to write “Jesus is Risen” on their billboard. But they still have to rent the space for the service and if the church had pop up banners saying “Jesus is Risen” then they can’t stop them using them during their hire. Just as the cake bakers could not stop the gay commissioners from getting someone else to write “support gay marriage” on the cake they supplied.

Well if producing a cake for someone else is "speech" because of a message written on it (which I doubt is a good piece of legal reasoning), then I don't see why hiring a venue wouldn't be similar.

Let's say it involves some advertising outside of the venue for the time of the event. Well that could mean the business writing a message that they disagree with.

Or just say, you are helping them to further a message you disagree with, so that is you being forced to speak in some sense.

You honestly think they wouldn’t have been guilty of discrimination if they had refused to enter into the agreement in the first place?

You might find it helpful to read the following which goes into detail about the right to religious belief, the right to manifest that belief and the right to freedom of worship: https://www.echr.coe.int/documents/d/echr/guide_art_9_eng

In my opinion it wrong to refuse basic services that have no element of creativity. But to refuse forced creativity and expression is fine.
e.g. to refuse to sell some a cake would be wrong, to refuse to decorate it with a particular message is ok.
Perhaps a way around it for the baker to not offer any messages of any sort on any cakes at all. There's a hopper full of edible figures or letters at a set price each, you buy what you want and shove them on the cake yourself outside of the shop. You can put a man and a woman on there, two men, two women, twenty men if that's your thing.
On the website build it with basic placeholder images and text. Show them how to change those easily. Let them have as much fun as they want playing with it.
One thing I do find disturbing is people trying to force other people to do things against their will. Not by accident but deliberately. Going out of their way to find someone with different views, and trying to force that person to do what you know they really don't want to do. That seems very infringing on other people rights.

Possibly, but that's about terminating an agreement.

Why isn't it more comparable to refusing to bake a custom gay wedding cake?

They didn’t refuse to bake a custom gay wedding cake, they refused to write on it ‘support gay marriage’ as this went against their beliefs. The case found that people cannot be forced to say things they don’t belief. If they had refused to bake the cake they would have been guilty of discrimination but they didn’t.

You mean like Glasgow City Council having to pay £100,000 compensation for cancelling letting a venue to an evangelical Christian group?
https://judiciary.scot/home/sentences-judgments/judgments/2022/10/25/billy-graham-evangelistic-association-v-scottish-event-campus-limited

If a Christian can e.g. refuse to design a website for gay marriage, and a liberal can e.g. refuse to design a website for conservative Christians, is it really harming anyone? Or how is going down this path going to result in harm?

I find this very worrying. I fully support LGB people and I support T people, with caveats on when and which services are used.

This is a "socially conservative" attack on "progressive" values and comes alongside striking down affirmative action on race and debt forgiveness for students. This could fundamentally shift US cultural norms and hurt lots of people.

GC beliefs are not ‘political activity’ they are a protected belief under the Equality Act whether you want to pretend they are not or not.

Well consider religion then.

Is there case law that you can/can't refuse to hire a space for a scientology event?

As distinct from refusing to hire a space to a scientologist just in general.

Well when you aren't discriminating against the person, but refusing to be business involved in a particular political ideology, regardless of the colour of someone's skin, then quite possibly there isn't case law for that.

Why isn't it more comparable to refusing to bake a custom gay wedding cake?

Being homosexual is as innate as having a certain skin color. I am sure the Supreme Court would not tell someone they have a right to not make a African American themed website. And citing religion as the reason is also ridiculous.

On the other hand, forcing people to do things they don't want to do is usually not a good idea.

@IWillNoLie is talking about the law as it stands in the UK and is spot on.

GC beliefs are not ‘political activity’ they are a protected belief under the Equality Act whether you want to pretend they are not or not.

PorcelinaV do you work for Stonewall? They seem very keen to train people in what they would like the law to be rather than what it actually is too.

Is there a clear case in law that you mustn’t discriminate in the provision of a service to black people?

Once again, NO! A pub hiring out a room to the public cannot discriminate against GC customers, or black people, wishing to hire their room for any lawful activity.

Is there clear case law for that?

Anyway I can discuss what I think the law can reasonably be, regardless of whether it's actually UK law at this moment.

What is actually the big deal if you can refuse to hire a room for a particular political activity that you see as unethical?

I think it's similar to refusing to make a custom gay wedding cake.

Once again, NO! A pub hiring out a room to the public cannot discriminate against GC customers, or black people, wishing to hire their room for any lawful activity.

They (or a website) can, however, hold activities themselves that are restricted to specific protected characteristics - so have a single sex dating app, a women’s group, a group for trans individuals, or an ante-natal group if this is a proportionate response to achieve a reasonable aim. And likewise groups hiring the room can also hold events restricted to a specific protected characteristic under the Equality Act.

I would look at it like, a pub shouldn't be able to refuse to hire a room to someone because of their GC views.

Let's say you want to hold a meeting of your local UFO group at the pub, you shouldn't be able to refuse service just because the person booking the room also happens to hold GC views.

But quite possibly you should be able to refuse to hire the room for a GC event, while allowing other types of political event.

Now if it's a major convention centre, no, I don't think you should be able to refuse a GC event. That's probably a lot harder to find an alternative to.

Or small websites should be able to have whatever rules they want. But major platforms like Twitter and Reddit maybe shouldn't be allowed to prevent GC views being expressed.

It's a threat to free speech if the big platforms are all biased in a certain way, and I think free speech is more important than the property rights of the companies to control those platforms in the way that they want.

Thanks@IWillNoLie for the clarification.

No. But as populating the pages and placing pictures was likely to be a significant part of the design they may wish to go to someone who would do that but too. But if they were happy for you to just do all the layout work then you would be breaching the equality act to say no and direct them elsewhere.

I can't imagine that i personally would feel the need to discriminate based on a protected characteristic, hence the 'person I disliked' reference.

But say I was deeply anti religious could I say that it wasn't my area of expertise and direct them to a provider that did religious websites?

However...say I was a self employed website designer and a person who I disliked wanted to employ my services there would be nothing to stop me from either pricing myself out of the job, being rather busy at the moment or doing a piss poor job to ensure that the person i didn't like didn't then recommend me to his friends.

If you disliked them due to their protected characteristic then doing any of those things would be illegal discrimination. You could, however, refuse to populate the pages with their chosen text.

It is nothing to do with having a monopoly; they cannot discriminate on the basis of protected characteristics and they cannot be forced to say or write something they disagree with. It doesn’t matter how many alternative businesses there are.