To ask you what you think about the Christian bakery?

[Summerbreezer]

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!

[SevenZarkSeven]

lol @ Bert Ernie question

No, I don't think they were brothers

Lots of people think they were a couple

Sesame Street was extremely right-on and it was the 70s/80s so certainly possible.

[Bluecarrot]

They are just a few miles from my house and I used to be a regular customer. The business expanded a fair bit recently too, including being stocked in tesco. But I won't be buying their stuff anymore. I miss the barnbrack already, but it wouldn't taste as good now.

[StealthPolarBear]

Small icing b&g for top of cake. Not that brides and grooms in the 80s were small

[MaidOfStars]

Categorising things into the same set ('that which should not be portrayed on sponge with a jam filling') is not, in my opinion, equating those things or ascribing any commonality other than the category title.

I don't like cats. I don't like kiwi fruit. Cats are not being equated with kiwi fruit, other than in my very specific set of things I don't like, IYSWIM?

However, I guess others may interpret differently!

[alemci]

I agree brave potato. the wording is controversial.

a compromise would have been to bake and ice the cake and names but give the person some writing icing to write the phrase on themselves at a latwr date.

[PiperRose]

So what you're saying is it's ok for businesses to be able to be discriminatory?

[Cyclebump]

I'm so glad there are other people conflicted about this.

I am also in the camp of thinking there's a difference between them refusing to serve a gay person and feeling like making the cake would be an endorsement of something the owners don't believe.

Aaaaaaaargh, so confused!

[doobledootch]

Actually it took me ages to post that and the inter racial argument has now been made, put that way they are totally in the wrong.

Although, I find it ironic that so many people are happy to be so disparaging about religious beliefs whilst making an argument for tolerance.

[Lesleythegiraffe]

Did some shop assistants not refuse to sell customers alcohol as it was against their religious beliefs? What became of that case, and is it much different to this one?

[SevenZarkSeven]

Well that's ridiculous too IMO, lesley.

However drinking alcohol is not a protected characteristic.

[MaidOfStars]

If they had refused to bake a cake decorated to promote interracial marriage or disability rights because their giant sky pixie said these things were wrong, would everyone think that is ok?

Nobody is saying that this is 'OK, nothing to see here, move along'. What I (and others) are saying is that it should be the right of a private business to take whatever commissions they wish based on whatever the fuck they want to believe.

For sure, they will reap what they sow though. If you want to refuse a private contract that supports/promotes interracial marriage, and then are stupid enough to try to defend such an abhorrent attitude (one that applies here for gay marriage, IMO), then you suffer the consequences, likely to be economic but possibly, um, more 'robust'.

And now I appear to be defending violent direct action. Jeez, I am a bundle of contradictions tonight.

[PiperRose]

That was a blanket 'I will not sell this product to anyone', not 'I will not sell this product to you because I don't like what you do'

[doobledootch]

Oh and about Bert and Ernie I watched Sesame Street all the time as a child, I honestly thought they were brothers

[TucsonGirl]

"So what you're saying is it's ok for businesses to be able to be discriminatory?"
I believe it is a fundamental right of the individual to be able to do business with whomever their choose to do business with for any reasons they see fit. However I know I'm in the minority with that belief. I just think a world where people are non-discriminatory for fear of being fined or ostracised is not a harmonious world. It means far more if people can be as discriminatory as they want but CHOOSE not to discriminate.

If I had a cake shop I'd make cakes saying just about anything on them a paying customer wanted, whether I agreed with it or not. But I do not think I or anyone else should be forced to do that by law.

[HermioneWeasley]

maid you may believe it should be the right of businesses to provide services to whoever they like, but the law disagrees with you. I remember shops and pubs having signs saying "no dogs or Irish" so personally, I think this development in the law is a good thing. Clearly many MNetters long for the good old days.

[ouryve]

Pregnantberry has said what I think about it all far more eloquently than I can.

My only additional thought is that, from the side of the customer, I'm not sure I would want to give my custom to a business that so openly disapproved of something about me or those close to me, anyhow.

[alemci]

Yes I agree Maid of Stars the whole thing is difficult but if you don't feel comfortable with this commission you don't and you should be able to not go through with it. He refunded the money etc.

There must be other bakeries who don't care but this obviously affects this baker and his beliefs. It is not as though he wishes any harm to the customer ITMS.

Maybe the law needs looking at!

[Lesleythegiraffe]

I had a friend who was very religious and reserved and baked cakes for people.

She refused to make any with boobs or willies or anything she considered rude.

That was a few years ago and I daresay she wouldn't be able to do that nowadays.

[mermaidstale]

What if they'd refused to make a cake which said "Support White Supremacy" or "Support Phaedophiles" ? If you are picking and choosing just what suits your beliefs to defend, why shouldn't an Irish bakery do the same?

[VioletHare]

So what about them being asked to bake a cake for Atheism UK with a slogan like 'There is no God'? Atheism (in its 'true' form) is just as much a protected characteristic as sexual orientation.

I wouldn't expect the bakery to be obliged to take on any business by a group so opposed to their beliefs.

Likewise, if a local Church asked 'Gay bakery' (iyswim) to bake a cake promoting marriage, with a quote along the lines of 'the joyous partnership of a man and a woman', I would fully accept the right of the 'Gay' bakery to refuse to produce a product so at odds with their own beliefs.

[Scousadelic]

I find these things incredibly difficult and do feel that religious beliefs are often not given sufficient respect in this country and wish we could find a middle ground based on respect for all.

I also find it hard to understand that it is ok for some of our local hotels to advertise themselves openly as for gay men only yet it would be illegal for a hotel to cater for straight people only and some have been prosecuted for it

[thaliablogs]

He lost me when he said "the bible doesn't support this." The bible also doesn't support wearing clothes of mixed fibres, selling land, reaping to the edge of a field....etc. etc. If you want to quote the bible's guidance, you need to stick to all of it or none of it, IMO.

So I am not supportive of his right to refuse this commission on the basis that he's giving an utterly spurious reason for doing so. Plus what everyone else said about how it's illegal 'n all.

[bumbleymummy]

I agree that there is a difference between refusing to serve someone because they are gay and turning down the commission for a cake that promotes something that they disagree with. As others have said, if it was someone refusing to bake a cake that was saying something along the lines of "ban gay marriage" people would probably be sticking up for their right to do that.

I also don't think that they were comparing gay marriage to pornography - just giving other situations where they have refused to put something on a cake that they didn't agree with.

[Beastofburden]

I don't think we can say that they are entitled to refuse this because otherwise ppl could write "yum yum, lets all rape babies" on a cake and that would be fine too.

There is a rule, I think, that no law can give you the right to break another law. So the law about respecting Christian beliefs can't give them the right to discriminate against gay marriage. Whereas we could quite fairly refuse to write a slogan which says stoning women is great, or hooray for rape, or what have you. Because our community hasn't agreed to give legal protection to those who want to stone women.

I have real trouble taking ppl seriously who say that god hates gay marriage. The theology is so dodgy, and the same ppl very rarely make any fuss about other things that are just as forbidden by the bible, such as divorce and remarriage. It's as if they wanted me to sympathise with a preference for pink icing. But if they want to prefer pink icing at home where I don't have to care, fine.

Just don't go into business selling wedding cakes and then have a hissy fit because its a gay wedding.