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Gay Cake appeal result settled?

Infinite Chaos

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Rather than resurrect an old thread, thought I'd bring an update to this story. Original story link here -

https://www.debatepolitics.com/euro...inst-ashers-bakery-w-30-a.html?highlight=cake

Today's ruling here

The UK's highest court ruled that Ashers bakery's refusal to make a cake with a slogan supporting same-sex marriage was not discriminatory.
The five justices on the Supreme Court were unanimous in their judgement.
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Gay campaigner Peter Tatchel tonight convinced me with his support for the case - "while the judgement means the bakery could refuse to decorate the cake with a message they disagreed with, this also meant a gay bakery owner could not be forced to decorate a cake with an anti-gay slogan." My original doubts remain as the bakery took Lee's money and took 3 days to make a decision still make the case foggy.

I am finally fully OK with this result - the bakers have made clear their refusal was not in providing the cake to a gay buyer - rather the slogan he wished them to decorate it with which was something they disagreed with. For me, this would have been clearer if the bakery had refused the sale and not taken the money but then so few decisions in life are clear cut.
 
I guess folks like the bakery can't win them all.
 
Well, next time I bake a cake (which I never do and never will), I'll make sure I agree with what I "wrote" on it.

No charge.

If anyone wants one with "Merry Xmas" on it, I'll of course refuse. On grounds of disagreeing not only with the message (against my beliefs, doanchaknow?) but also with the whole darn shindig.

To me this final ruling is a fine example of going from the sublime to the cor' blimey. As, for that matter, is the whole affair.

But it's troglodyte country in Ulster, so who's surprised?
 
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It's now officially and legally a fudge cake.
 
Chagos said:
~ To me this final ruling is a fine example of going from the sublime to the cor' blimey.
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Why so? I felt the ruling struck balance and set the precedent that nobody running a business could be forced to promote a message they did not agree with - that goes from anti gay marriage to pro gay marriage messages.

Chagos said:
~As, for that matter, is the whole affair.

But it's troglodyte country in Ulster, so who's surprised?
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Generally I'm pretty sure many people run a business and will make personal compromises to make their sales. However, from personal experience serving there - it's one of the three last places on earth I would voluntarily go to. (USA / Northern Ireland and Italy making my 3 personal hell-holes)
 
Infinite Chaos said:
Why so? I felt the ruling struck balance and set the precedent that nobody running a business could be forced to promote a message they did not agree with - that goes from anti gay marriage to pro gay marriage messages.
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Yes, I caught that stance of yours in the OP already. But IMO bakers should bloody well bake or cake and not play arbiter of whatever opinion, let alone make own beliefs the parameter of whether they'll comply with a customer's wish or not.

Only grounds for refusal to be breaking the law. As in libel, slander, death to the Queen, down with all .......(Jews, Muslims, blacks etc.),................. that sort of thing.

In its attempt to be Solomonic, the court has made a fool of itself in my book. All courts that try that go the same way.

Generally I'm pretty sure many people run a business and will make personal compromises to make their sales. However, from personal experience serving there - it's one of the three last places on earth I would voluntarily go to.
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Only place in Europe where you really have to set back your watch once you reach it. Around 200 years.

By comparison the Republic is charming.

(USA / Northern Ireland and Italy making my 3 personal hell-holes)
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Once having learned the ropes I found both USA and Italy quite okay. Not thruout of course but I can't say that of any country.

What ropes Ulster is run by, I don't want to learn them. Whichever camp one looks at, they're all insane and whatever positive sound bites have come from there since "the troubles", improvement (let alone progress) is nowhere near half as big as claimed.
 
So few homosexual bakers who cares what homosexuals will do or won't do.

this is yet another example of the absurdity of making a neurotic sexual fetish a political issue and then claiming ridiculous privileges for those practicing it.
 
Chagos said:
~ But IMO bakers should bloody well bake or cake and not play arbiter of whatever opinion, let alone make own beliefs the parameter of whether they'll comply with a customer's wish or no ~
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Can't agree with that, if a cakeshop has baked cakes and a customer wants to buy a premed cake, I'll agree with you there. It's when a product is especially requested that puts you in an awkward position.

I do portrait sculpture on the side, if someone wants to buy one of my plaster casts from a pre made mould I don't care what their politics. If someone asks me to make a bust of a loved one or a celebrity I am OK with that - but if I am asked to make a bust of someone like (I know - Godwin's law) Hitler, I would refuse. It's my labour and I have a right to withhold it just as I believe the bakers had a right.
Similarly, I wouldn't support someone enforcing that a sculptor with far-right tendencies made a portrait of Martin Luther King - even if I would love to see the discomfort on their face doing so.

Where I disagree with the bakery, I wouldn't have taken the customer's money in the first place.
 

Yep, I think that is where the UK law has finnally landed in the sensable place. It is not a requirement of free speach to enable the free speach of others. Your right of free speach has in it the right not to so speak.

Besides the world is not short of gay bakers!
 
Please let me be on record in full support of same-sex marriage. No private buisness should be required to fabricate a product they disagree with. This is for the free market to decide. Let the gay couple post about the shop and let consumers decide whether or not to patron them.
 
Infinite Chaos said:
Can't agree with that, if a cakeshop has baked cakes and a customer wants to buy a premed cake, I'll agree with you there. It's when a product is especially requested that puts you in an awkward position.
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simple solution there, let it be known that you (I) don't bake cakes with ANY messages, political or other, on them. Then let the market decide.

Of course we're merely differing in opinion as is the right of both of us. Yet if I do business making sculptures in accordance with what the customer wishes for, I'd make one of ole Adolf as well. As an alternative I can mould (or bake) something of my own design and hope that customers find it attractive enough to buy, their otherwise individual preferences be damned.

If I want to make political,religious or philosophical statements (and be it by refusal of specific activity) I can run for office or just attend a demonstration.

As an aside, what Godwin formulated was just an observation, he never intended it to be a law. Such as in bringing up Hitler in a debate being a strict no-no. Because it isn't.
Similarly, I wouldn't support someone enforcing that a sculptor with far-right tendencies made a portrait of Martin Luther King - even if I would love to see the discomfort on their face doing so.
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If he advertised as customizing his work to customer specs., I would.
Where I disagree with the bakery, I wouldn't have taken the customer's money in the first place.
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We finally have agreement on something.
 
Baking isn't speaking, it's baking.
 
Chagos said:
Baking isn't speaking, it's baking.
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I am with you....anyone who demands it should be able to get a baked cake from anyone who sells cakes

The design and the implementation of the decoration celebrating the event is however another matter.

DEAL?
 
Chagos said:
Baking isn't speaking, it's baking.
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It’s commonly understood that freedom of speech encompasses freedom of expression. I don’t think you’ll find a court in the US or UK that doesn’t accept decorating a cake as a form of artistic expression.
 
As stated earlier: going from the sublime to the cor blimey. Not just the courts either.

But with opinions being like (insert other parts of the body like ............erhh..............elbows:2razz, I guess the topic is otherwise exhausted now.
 
Wayne Jr said:
The Supreme Court disagrees.
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.....and has ruled, so the whole shindig here is pretty pointless by now.

Opportunities taken to voice disagreement here with the verdict notwithstanding
 
If you support one team, what is wrong with refusing to bake a cake with another team on it. In short, it's the shop owners business, and what they chose to put on the cakes is up to them. I would have no issue if it were a gay baker refusing to make a cake for straight people.
 
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