Belfast bakers lose "gay cake" discrimination appeal

[Cyberman]

How about this: A black person orders a cake from a white baker for a party and wants the cake to say "Congrats my nigg@s"  White guy is extremely uncomfortable making such a cake and refuses.  Discrimination? Racism? Reverse racism?

Discrimination, racially motivated.

Why is this so hard for you?

[ukatheist]

Forced? No. But when they are providing a public service, their personal sensibilities are irrelevant.

And apparently the law agrees with me.

So not forced to do it, just fined and punished if they don't....coercion right?

But they aren't preforming a service of preservation ie cleaning/maintenance/repair. Their service is creating something that did not exist before. I don't think they should have to create something they morally disagree with or be fined for refusing to create it. The free market is more than capable of working out the bigots.

They morally disagree with cake? Think they are in the wrong business then.

But it isn't the cake that they disagree with, just the message iced on it. And in the UK it is against the law to refuse service to someone on the basis of sexual orientation, which is essentially what they did. They did not have a problem with marriage, just gay marriage.

[FatAndFaithless]

I'm actually a little iffy on this decision. Not sure how the law works in Ireland, but I don't think this decision would fly in America.

The point of anti-discrimination laws is preventing a business from refusing service to a customer based on protected statuses, such as sex, race, religion, etc.

Anti-discrimination laws do not force businesses to sell products that they don't offer. A bakery can't refuse to bake a cake for someone because of their race, for example, but but that bakery can refuse to make a cake with certain messages/logos/statements on it, if it's something they don't offer. Take the gay-cake bakery case in Portland. The business owners were fined for refusing service, not refusing to bake a certain cake. If an atheist goes to a christian-owned t-shirt shop for example, the shop can't refuse them service, but can refuse to print t-shirts saying "Fuck jesus" or something equally as offensive.

Opening the door to forcing business to sell products they don't offer is a can of worms, in my opinion. Anti-discrimination laws guarantee that a customer will be served, but they can't force a business to sell products they don't offer.

Just my two cents.

[Neo-Scholastic]

@Chad: I don't know; can they? Do you have an example of this? Is providing content for a fundamentalist magazine the same as providing a service to the general public?

That depends on the nature of the service. There is a big difference between refusing to serve someone coffee because they are gay and refusing to speak, write, or draw things that promote causes with which you object.

[Minimalist]

Apparently bakers are the dumbest class of humans on either side of the pond, Stim.

[FatAndFaithless]

But honestly, if scrawling something in icing is that offensive to your religious beliefs, you might want to re-evaluate your religious beliefs.

[Neo-Scholastic]

If a business prints pamphlets, are you saying they cannot refuse to serve customer who want to publish political and religious messages with which they disagree?

Legally, no they can't.

What if the customer is the Aryan Nation? You are saying that a printer cannot refuse to print their pamphlets.

[Minimalist]

If an atheist goes to a christian-owned t-shirt shop for example, the shop can't refuse them service, but can refuse to print t-shirts saying "Fuck jesus" or something equally as offensive.

If said store advertises that they will print custom t-shirts and they refuse to print one for a particular cause I would say they have a problem.

http://www.customink.com/

[Cyberman]

Being gay is equivalent to being a Nazi? Why are we shifting focus here?

[ukatheist]

Political beliefs are not a protected characteristic so refusing service to neo nazis is not discrimination.

Sent from my ALE-L21 using Tapatalk