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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask you what you think about the Christian bakery?

402 replies

Summerbreezer · 08/07/2014 18:49

Can't see a thread about this on here - apologies if there is one already.

For those who haven't read the story, a bakery in Northern Ireland has refused to bake a cake for a gay person. They wanted Bert and Ernie on the top of the cake with the words "Queerspace".

BBC Link here:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-28206581

I am completely torn here. On one hand, I am a big believer in "trendy" rights not trumping "untrendy" ones. The rights of Christians are just as important as the rights of gay people.

I am also a big believer in the freedom of private business to contract with whoever they wished.

But then, if this bakery had refused to serve a black person on the grounds of race, I would feel deeply uncomfortable about it.

So Mumsnet, tell me what you think!

OP posts:
diddlediddledumpling · 09/07/2014 19:28

the cake said "Support Gay Marriage", it wasn't just Queerspace that caused the bakery to say no.

daisychain01 · 09/07/2014 19:29

PosyFossilsShoes thanks for the link, I wasn't aware there is a group called Queerspace - yes, probably I'm well behind the times, but I associate the word Queer with the sort of insult that used to be spat out at people like Oscar Wilde and Quentin Crisp.

Maybe it is an acceptable word these days - but not one I would have wanted to ice on a cake Cake

daisychain01 · 09/07/2014 19:29

oops that was meant to be a Smile but ended up a Cake. Must be wine-o'clock

OnlyLovers · 09/07/2014 19:35

'Presumably you are aware there are people around who don't agree with gayness?'

Yes, I am (and thank you for the patronising question), but I think they're vile bigots.

And it couldn't matter less whether or not you would want the word 'queer' on a cake; these people did - albeit not just as a random word but in the context of it being part of the name of an organisation.

PosyFossilsShoes · 09/07/2014 19:38

The whole controversy was that they wanted the Queerspace logo on the cake (and it's a local group, so not as obscure there as here.)

Queer has been reclaimed and is now part of the QUILTBAG umbrella (QUeer / QUestioning, Intersex, Lesbian, Trans*, Bisexual, Asexual, Gay in case anyone was wondering). It's not a word that is friendly when shouted at people in the street but it is one that a lot of people use to self-define because it includes attraction to or by people who don't identify with binary gender.

diddlediddledumpling · 09/07/2014 19:40

Posy I don't think you're right. on the local radio news yesterday, I heard that the objection was to the slogan Support Gay Marriage.

MaidOfStars · 09/07/2014 19:40

How can you 'not agree' with homosexuality? What does this even mean? What is there to agree/disagree about?

diddlediddledumpling · 09/07/2014 19:41

m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-28206581

you can a photograph of the cake here.

PosyFossilsShoes · 09/07/2014 19:41

I think the baker has shot himself in the foot, to be honest.

If he had said "I'm sorry, we're just a bakery and it's our policy not to support political campaigns, I'm sure you'd understand we wouldn't ice a No Gay Marriage slogan either" then there would be absolutely nothing wrong with that.

But he didn't, he said that he was "taking a stand" for "Christian beliefs" which makes it look very much as though his refusal was connected to the sexuality of the customer (a protected characteristic) and not to a neutral political stance.

Also, "taking a stand" - if one side is deliberately courting controversy, I'd say it's the one which has publicly declared that it is!

diddlediddledumpling · 09/07/2014 19:42

here

PosyFossilsShoes · 09/07/2014 19:43

diddle okay, PART of the objection was to the logo (according to the Beeb link). :)

diddlediddledumpling · 09/07/2014 19:43

if his refusal was connected to the sexuality of the customer, then they wouldn't sell any cakes to gay people!
The refusal was only connected to the message on the cake.

OnlyLovers · 09/07/2014 20:04

Posy, I agree with everything in that post. diddle, I think it's disingenuous to say the objection was 'only' to the slogan. You can't really unpick the slogan from the customers' sexuality.

diddlediddledumpling · 09/07/2014 20:08

of course you can..In that, if a gay customer ordered a birthday cake, I would assume the bakery would make and sell them one.

SuburbanRhonda · 09/07/2014 20:10

if his refusal was connected to the sexuality of the customer, then they wouldn't sell any cakes to gay people!

How would they know any of their other customers were gay?

diddlediddledumpling · 09/07/2014 20:10

I also asked earlier, but nobody responded, what if a straight person ordered this cake and the bakery refused to take the order?

diddlediddledumpling · 09/07/2014 20:12

they wouldn't know, of course, and I doubt they would care because I don't believe thry have any interest in the sexuality of their customers.

SuburbanRhonda · 09/07/2014 20:13

Depends on why they refused, diddle.

diddlediddledumpling · 09/07/2014 20:17

well I'm taking them at their word, which was that they refused because they are opposed to gay marriage. do you have some insider information?

PhaedraIsMyName · 09/07/2014 20:19

It's petty I know but this really grates.

In an online statement, Mr McArthur said: "The directors and myself looked at it

PhaedraIsMyName · 09/07/2014 20:21

I also asked earlier, but nobody responded, what if a straight person ordered this cake and the bakery refused to take the order?

I did answer that- as did others in the context of indirect discrimination.

SuburbanRhonda · 09/07/2014 20:22

Actually, I was answering the question you were going on about in your post of 20:10:42, diddle.

diddlediddledumpling · 09/07/2014 20:25

Phaedra you answered in the context of a cake for a gay couple, which this wasn't.
Rhonda same answer applies. The bakery asserts that they refused because of the message on the cake.

PosyFossilsShoes · 09/07/2014 20:29

In fairness though, the bakery are hardly going to assert anything else at this stage, are they? That could be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but equally it could be a retrospective attempt to justify the unjustifiable as they look a lawsuit in the face.

[Cynicism born of 12 years of lawyering]

m0therofdragons · 09/07/2014 20:34

I'm Christian and as a Christian I am not right to judge others and accept and love all others as they are. Sadly, many say they are Christian and believe that makes them superior to others and are very judgemental. They, imo, are not true Christians. So forgetting the religion side of things, they are a couple who run a bakery. They can pick and choose what work they take on. However, they are doing it because they find homosexuality offensive NOT because they are Christians.