‘Gay Cake’ case now going back to court

[FeminismandWomensFights]

This case is an important one to watch for those interested legal protections for personal freedom of belief. It is now going back to court.
Gist seems to be that the complainant tried to order a cake with a message on it saying ‘support gay marriage’ from a baker who doesn’t support gay marriage. Bakery says no to that specific order.
Complainant feels it’s about discrimination because he couldn’t make that supplier supply him with that specific message on a cake. Baker says that any different message on a cake would’ve been completely fine to provide to him, it’s not personal discrimination, it’s about people having a right not to endorse political statements that they don’t believe in. (Possibly making arguments about religious freedom of expression too, but I haven’t read into the details). It‘s easy to see how this case could relate to GC people’s rights, at work and so on.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-49350891

And if I was a baker and someone asked me to ice a cake with some homophobic or sexist crap, I'd give them this one instead

I agree with @Propertyofhood

i think it is a form of abuse not to accept no for an answer and to continue to take someone to court until that no is overturned. It is using the law as a form of coercion.

i hope Mr Lee loses as otherwise it is a very dangerous precedent.

Very dangerous.

I total agree that businesses should be able to refuse service. There may be consequences, complaints, future loss of business because of it.

The National Theatre did refuse to serve lesbians as was their right. I do not agree with that decission, I told them what I thought about that decission, I will be less inclined to go there now. They may act differently next time or maube not. That to me is how things should be.

And the people who will be most affected by this?

The poor generally, women, immigrants, ethnic minorities, gay and lesbian people.

Look at Yaniv. Picked on poor immigrant working women. Because they are the ones with the least power - the ones least able to fight back.

The cosy middle classes who are waving this stuff through are not the ones who will bear the brunt of it.

He’s not taking the bakery owners back to court constantly and ‘not taking no for an answer’. He actually won, twice. The bakery owners pushed for the third time where he then lost. He is now perusing a case against the UK, not the bakery owners.

Providing a service does not mean you agree with the message or people requesting the service.

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

They didn’t ‘bake the cake and offer him a pen to ice himself’ as you all keep saying either, they took the money, then two days later called him to say they were refusing his order.

I understand why you think it’s dangerous territory if he wins, but it’s also dangerous if he doesn’t.

Discrimination by businesses becoming ‘acceptable’ on a case by case basis? We start giving weight in law to ‘religious beliefs’ in order to discriminate and who knows where it’ll take us. Iran, anyone?

The DUP used this case to try and enact The Conscience Clause into UK legislation, this clause aims to create a legal exemption [within the equality act] on grounds of strongly held religious beliefs.

That seems a pretty dangerous precedent too.

Why should anyone be allowed to refuse a customer because of religious beliefs?

Because we do not tolerate forced speech in a democracy. Religion is actually a red herring in this case. Being forced to ice a cake with a message that you disagree with is forced speech. If someone went to a baker wanting "gas the Jews" and a swastika on a cake, the baker should be able to refuse, yes? If a baker can be compelled to write "support gay marriage" on a cake, they can be compelled to write Nazi sentiments on a cake.

I repeat, this is about compelled speech, not religion.

It is using the law as a form of coercion.

Exactly.

This is about a cake . Not the man's right to employment because of protected characteristic. Not about wrongful arrest, not about right to remain in the country, not about denied access to civil rights like equality of marriage or benefits. This is about a man who didn't get the exact words he wanted piped on a freaking cake .

Wasting the time, energy and resources of the European Court to try and overturn the Supreme Court verdict. 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.

I feel like most adults in this country have lost the ability to assess a situation and look ahead to its unintended consequences.

They aren't able to look backwards, either. If this kind of law had existed in the past, how would we have had people who protested the status quo on things like civil rights?

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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).

• it’s to do with the concept of...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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

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.

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.

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.