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

[SerendipityJane]

Not sure quite what this means. None of us approves of forced speech, and yet ?

https://news.sky.com/story/us-supreme-court-sides-with-christian-graphic-designer-who-refused-to-create-same-sex-wedding-website-12912559

Possibly, but that's about terminating an agreement.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

If that's "forced speech", (which is doubtful imo)

Forgive us if we're not convinced more by your vague assertions than the judgement produced by the Supreme Court. But at least you didn't say "imho", I guess...

I think you should listen to the posters above, who do in fact know what they're talking about. To sum up, again: the Equality Act forbids discrimination on the basis of a protected characteristic (or the perception, true or not, of such), including religion or belief (which also includes lack of religion or belief). That means that you cannot treat someone with a protected characteristic less favourably than someone without it, in otherwise identical circumstances.

(There is a slight caveat, I think, to the example @IWillNoLie uses about Muslim groups, which is that the Equality Act only applies to businesses. I have a hunch that if you are, for example, a charity, you can limit your services to people whose aims roughly correspond with yours. I am part of a Quaker Meeting which rents the space to other groups and I think we actually have a responsibility to make sure we do this.)

Compelled speech - which does, yes, in fact include writing words, saying words, singing words, etc etc. - is a different issue. Not discriminating against people who disagree with you does not require you to pretend that you agree with them.

Forgive us if we're not convinced more by your vague assertions than the judgement produced by the Supreme Court. But at least you didn't say "imho", I guess...

I explained why I thought it was doubtful in a previous post.

The sense in which I would agree it would be "forced speech" is that you are being forced to contribute to spreading a certain message. But that also applies to hiring a venue.

Just blundering in here to idly muse that all this wittering on about speech is all very well, but unless I've missed a memo, we have to pay our taxes no matter what the state does with them.

Blundering out again.

Ah, yes there are restrictions for religious groups - you are right, they can restrict who can use their premises. It was a bad example. If the centre was run by the council then it could not restrict who hired it. For charities it is much more limited though.

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/discrimination-in-the-provision-of-goods-and-services/discrimination-in-the-provision-of-goods-and-services1/goods-and-services-what-are-the-different-types-of-discrimination/what-doesn-t-count-as-unlawful-discrimination-in-goods-and-services/religious-organisations-and-charities-when-discrimination-is-allowed-in-the-provision-of-goods-or-services/

So if the centre was run by a Muslim business man they couldn’t stop a church group hiring it for an Easter service. If it was run by a mosque they could.

Here is the summary of the judgement so you can read what the law actually decides rather than making up excuses to discriminate against people; https://www.equalityni.org/ECNI/media/ECNI/Cases%20and%20Settlements/2018/Lee-Ashers-SupremeCourtJudgement-Summary.pdf

On the use of religious buildings. There's a really great example of religious building use from 2016 that had conform to the religious principals of the building owners but it was by mutual agreement and not enforced through adversarial legal argument.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3726924/MPs-face-six-year-booze-ban-Parliament-Sharia-owned-office-block-2020-Palace-Westminster-refurbished.html

"rather than making up excuses to discriminate against people"

Why would it be a big deal if a venue like a pub could refuse to hire out a room for certain events on personal ethics grounds?

So pub A refuses a GC meeting / speech because they see it as unethical.

Pub B refuses a trans-activist meeting / speech because they see it as unethical.

Sure it's "discrimination" in some sort of way. Why is it discrimination of an unacceptable kind?

I am always mildly amused (which is preferable to feeling frustrated) to watch on here the reactions of someone who made an incorrect assertion and is presented with the actual, incontrovertible evidence of why they are wrong - such as being provided with a link to the current law, or a court judgement.

By pure chance, on this thread there are two reactions to compare and contrast. One’s response on being corrected was “ah yes, you’re right, my example was poor”.

The other continues to argue against it, tries to cast doubt on it (from a position of no legal expertise), comes up with a false equivalence…

Interesting to see who is willing to accept evidence and learn from it and who is not, wouldn’t you say?

I am always mildly amused (which is preferable to feeling frustrated) to watch on here the reactions of someone who made an incorrect assertion

Could you quote what incorrect assertion you mean?

Economically left wing maybe, but certainly not politically liberal. Find me an evangelical in the UK that approves of gay marriage or abortion.

My church sometimes gets things printed. One local printer refuses to print anything that promotes religion. Fair enough, we go elsewhere. That's not discrimination. It's their policy. They don't refuse to serve our members when they want wedding invites. That would be out of order.

What if everyone refused to print your leaflets, or provide you with services? What they are the only printer/baker/whatever in your town and your cohort of people of forced to travel further and pay more for services?

I think the website design issue is different to e.g. baking a cake though because there is more content and the designer is using their creative skills. I wouldn't be happy to make a website for a hardcore porn company but I would sell a pornstar a cake.

I think for the cake you have to separate the raw cake from the decoration of the cake. When I google undecorated cake I get tons of examples of mostly white undecorated cakes of various shapes. They are iced with plenty of space to write a message, or put decorations on top/around. To refuse to sell anyone one of these undecorated cakes because of a protected characteristic would be discrimination under the law.
If buyer wants to write stuff on the cake that's nothing to do with the seller.
However if the buyer wants the seller to write a message on the cake that goes against the values of the seller that that's a different thing entirely.

Imagine if a pedophile wanted a cake decorated with pro pedophile messages. Should a baker be forced to comply with that request?

The simplest way to avoid the issue seems to be not to offer the service at all. If the printer Bikechic mentioned above refuses to print all religious material irrespective of religion thats not discrimination because it's applied equally. If they print for some religions not others then that is religious discrimination.

If the printer Bikechic mentioned above refuses to print all religious material irrespective of religion thats not discrimination because it's applied equally. If they print for some religions not others then that is religious discrimination.

If you treat a Christian organisation different from one that is not Christian that is religious discrimination. It is not about comparing Christians to Jews. Remember that ’belief’ includes ‘absence of belief’ too.

@IWillNoLie
I don't get where It is not about comparing Christians to Jews. came from?

My point is apply a rule equally to everyone = OK
Apply rules depending upon a protected characteristic = discrimination

”I don't get where It is not about comparing Christians to Jews. came from?”

You said ”If they print for some religions not others”* *so I just picked two. I could equally have said Muslims and Sikhs. My point is it is not about treating different religions differently, it is about treating someone who has a particular religion or belief differently from those without that religion or belief. So refusing a service for a Zoroastrian but providing it for people who are not Zoroastrians, which includes those who do not follow any religion, would be discrimination.

”My point is apply a rule equally to everyone = OK”

If they didn’t provide a service for anyone then they would be ok in terms of discrimination but they wouldn’t be a very successful business!

But I am not sure where a printing business falls in terms of the Ashers judgement.