Christian Family face possible legal action

Just because you advertise your bakery as producing cakes with icing words doesn't mean that you should have to accept all requests for any wording.

What if a middle-aged man asked for a cake, from a gay baker, with something like

'I support old geezers having as much sex as they can with barely legal-aged schoolgirls'.

Would the gay baker be discriminating against the heterosexual if he refused the order, on the grounds that he didn't believe in older men having sex with 16-year old schoolgirls. Perfectly legal sex but the gay baker just doesn't agree with it.

Heterosexual cakes!

River, that would be illegal. Simple.

What was the phrase that the baker in question refused to do?

Bakers do heterosexual cakes all the time for heterosexual weddings.

Oops. Just checked the OP. "Support gay marriage". The bakers didn't have to support it, neither did anyone reading or even eating the cake. It was a phrase for the people ordering the cake. They were saying what they want. What the baker thinks about gay marriage is irrelevant.

On what grounds would it be illegal bags?

Should a sari owner be forced to weave, I love christianity, or christianity is the only religion or somthing like that, on his garments?

River - I can't imagine a court finding any baker who refused to write your slogan (not saying you agree with it) on a cake as having broken any law. It's distasteful and I expect any baker could refuse to ice it onto a cake. This thread is going doolally. The baker broke the law - simple.

soon if the sari maker advertised as doing custom printing or weaving on saris (do they?), then yes.

Perhaps it wouldn't be illegal. I'm not up on what counts as sexual soliciting within the law. Gay marriage is legal.

But it wasn't in NI at the time.

I think it may still not be in NI, but making custom cakes is and discriminating against customers on the grounds of politics (making gay marriage legal is a political issue) or relgion isn't. The baker broke the law.

Yes bags gay marriage is legal, as is marriage between predatory old men and 16 year-old schoolgirls.

All perfectly legal but we all have different views on what we think is a good and promotable idea.

There is no equality law that forbids predatory old men from being discriminated against. There is an equality law that forbids gay men or women from being discriminated against.

There is still a ban on gay marriage in Northern Ireland - apparently now the only place in western Europe where it is disallowed. In some ways it seems ridiculous that equality laws protect the gay couple on a relatively insubstantial issue whilst on a major issue - marriage - it seems unequal treatment is still legal.

As I understand it, the traditional "branches" of christianity, judaism and islam have varying degrees of opposition to the notion of gay marriage but all are absolutely opposed to conducting marriage ceremonies for gay people - so the term "marriage" only refers to civil/registry office ceremonies.

I'm obviously not articulate enough to get my point across!

My hypothetical heterosexual man requests a certain slogan to which a baker objects because he doesn't agree with promoting old men having sex/marriage with 16 year-old girls.

So, in IMO, the baker in NI who objected to a slogan promoting gay marriage is not discriminating against a gay customer but refusing to put into icing a slogan to which he disagrees.

I see your point, Riverwalk, but the complainants had the equality law on their side, which is how the case was successfully prosecuted.

Old men who have a penchant for 16 year old girls aren't protected by any such laws, so no attempted prosecution for refusing to endorse their prediliction would succeed.

How can the law be on their side when gay marriage is not legal in NI?

The legislature doesn't support gay marriage because there is no gay marriage in that part of the UK, so why is a baker who doesn't support gay marriage found guilty?

It was found that the bakery had discriminated against homosexuals. Not gay marriage per se.

The baker not supporting gay marriage is not the problem. The baker has every right not to support gay marriage on a personal level, i.e. as it affects him (or her).

The problem was that the baker wanted to treat a customer differently because of the baker's own beliefs and prejudices. The baker's own beliefs and prejudices should not interfere with his business. That is the law.

I'd be interested in following a case such as you suggest, river. If the law were not broken by the slogan (just as it wasn't for the Support Gay Marriage slogan), then I imagine the same rules about treating customers equally would apply.

The slogan Support Gay Marriage is not against NI law. Gay Marriage is but not campaigning to make it legal.

Oh blow the cake - I'll just have bread and butter thanks...

The Ashers are considering their legal options re appealing.

Oh blow the cake - I'll just have bread and butter thanks

with sprinkles!

Would it be OK for a B&B to refuse gays staying there?

What about B&B owners who refuse children?

What about a B&B that refuses Muslims?

A case was successfully brought against a couple who ran a B&B in the UK and refused to accept a gay couple as guests a couple of years ago, granjura.