Ashers cake controversy.

[screenexile]

So is this all-encompassing conscience or only for religious conscience?
Or are you still allowed to deny people if you don't agree with them?  There are lots of social experiments out there that show "a woman falling down in the street and we watch to see who picks her up then a homeless woman falls down and people walk over her"...type of thing so a lad in America called up gay-friendly bakeries here and asked them to bake a cake and decorate it with the words "gay marriage is wrong". Bit of a dick move but so are all these social experiments too... Needless to say all the bakeries refused to make the cake.
Where does this sit with the current ruling at Ashers going forward?

If you provide a good or service to the public you cannot deny your service because the client is gay or want a gay message on their cake/poster.

Someone mentioned the Shankill butchers thing... that would be incitement to hatred so could be denied.

If a loyalist band comes into your Catholic cake shop for a 25th Anniversary cake you'd better be willing to supply it with a big Union Jack on it or you will be discriminating!!

Nay boher mate, that'll be £500 of your fine giro pounds please...

No discrimation required, just an extortionate pricing structure.

Reminds me of this video . . . still funny!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gimiDBAK2wA

[Franko]

I don't see how the bakery discriminated against the customer on the basis of their sexual orientation. The reason for refusal of service was the message on the cake and not the customers sexual orientation.  If the customer had ordered a normal cake they wouldn't have refused service and if a straight person had ordered the same image it would probably have been refused.

The cake shop has to make the cake because they are a cake shop.  If I ordered a cake that said 'I love Samantha', I am not asking the cake shop to endorse that message or ask if Samantha is my wife/girlfriend/bit on the side, just to make the cake.

A gay person shouldn't have to cower in all the shops asking if they would mind making a cake.

It's a fair point. I think the judge has decided that the legislation is designed to rip away mealy-mouthed excuses for not serving someone. If it is accepted that someone doesn't have to make a cake with a gay message on the basis of their religion then they'll soon be claiming they can't serve someone at 2.20pm on a Tuesday afternoon because of their religion and it's a complete coincidence that the customer at that time happens to be gay.

Still, that's not to say there are no repercussions from such a decision. When a print shop in west Belfast is asked to produce t-shirts dedicated to the memory of the Shankill Butchers, don't say you weren't warned.

You are right, I was thinking that as well.  I guess the cake shop could refuse on the grounds of incitement to racial hatred in the example you give.

Another example (and I'm obv. playing devils advocate here) but I'm guessing that ruling means that the bogside branch of the t-shirt shop in question would now be forced to supply t-shirts dedicated to the great work of the parachute regiment?

[Franko]

So is this all-encompassing conscience or only for religious conscience?
Or are you still allowed to deny people if you don't agree with them?  There are lots of social experiments out there that show "a woman falling down in the street and we watch to see who picks her up then a homeless woman falls down and people walk over her"...type of thing so a lad in America called up gay-friendly bakeries here and asked them to bake a cake and decorate it with the words "gay marriage is wrong". Bit of a dick move but so are all these social experiments too... Needless to say all the bakeries refused to make the cake.
Where does this sit with the current ruling at Ashers going forward?

If you provide a good or service to the public you cannot deny your service because the client is gay or want a gay message on their cake/poster.

Someone mentioned the Shankill butchers thing... that would be incitement to hatred so could be denied.

If a loyalist band comes into your Catholic cake shop for a 25th Anniversary cake you'd better be willing to supply it with a big Union Jack on it or you will be discriminating!!

Nay boher mate, that'll be £500 of your fine giro pounds please...

No discrimation required, just an extortionate pricing structure.

If said loyalist band wanted to take you to court your pricing structure would land you with the exact same result that Ashers have just received.

[gallsman]

I don't see how the bakery discriminated against the customer on the basis of their sexual orientation. The reason for refusal of service was the message on the cake and not the customers sexual orientation.  If the customer had ordered a normal cake they wouldn't have refused service and if a straight person had ordered the same image it would probably have been refused.

The cake shop has to make the cake because they are a cake shop.  If I ordered a cake that said 'I love Samantha', I am not asking the cake shop to endorse that message or ask if Samantha is my wife/girlfriend/bit on the side, just to make the cake.

A gay person shouldn't have to cower in all the shops asking if they would mind making a cake.

It's a fair point. I think the judge has decided that the legislation is designed to rip away mealy-mouthed excuses for not serving someone. If it is accepted that someone doesn't have to make a cake with a gay message on the basis of their religion then they'll soon be claiming they can't serve someone at 2.20pm on a Tuesday afternoon because of their religion and it's a complete coincidence that the customer at that time happens to be gay.

Still, that's not to say there are no repercussions from such a decision. When a print shop in west Belfast is asked to produce t-shirts dedicated to the memory of the Shankill Butchers, don't say you weren't warned.

You are right, I was thinking that as well.  I guess the cake shop could refuse on the grounds of incitement to racial hatred in the example you give.

Another example (and I'm obv. playing devils advocate here) but I'm guessing that ruling means that the bogside branch of the t-shirt shop in question would now be forced to supply t-shirts dedicated to the great work of the parachute regiment?

That's the concern alright.

[deiseach]

I can see all manner of cakes with a poppy motif being ordered in Taig areas in the near future...

[Franko]

I can see all manner of cakes with a poppy motif being ordered in Taig areas in the near future...

I suppose they can't force you to make it taste nice

[muppet]

I can see all manner of cakes with a poppy motif being ordered in Taig areas in the near future...

Great. I would make them with poppies that looked slightly/barely/kinda like shamrocks.

I am sure you could have all sorts of clever twists. It would be hard to take a case against a baker who provided what you asked for, especially if the interaction was anyway open to interpretation. A point blank refusal might be a problem, but re-interpreting the request mightn't.

[armaghniac]

I can see all manner of cakes with a poppy motif being ordered in Taig areas in the near future...

Surely you are not required to endorse heroin?

That said, you'll soon e able to inject the cake itself
http://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-figure-out-how-to-make-home-made-heroin-without-poppies

[brokencrossbar1]

I can see all manner of cakes with a poppy motif being ordered in Taig areas in the near future...

Can't beat the notion of unintended consequences.  This just opens up the oven door for a real fire to be stoked up (pun fully intended).  I actually agree with the decision in a singular basis but the precedent that it has created is one which will cause havoc and I believe the only way to deal with it will be through legislative means.  The unfortunate thing is though that hard cases make poor laws and this is a hard case with the merits of the case not being relevant to the disingenuous rationale behind the actions of the people buying the cake.

[Bingo]

I can see all manner of cakes with a poppy motif being ordered in Taig areas in the near future...

Shit in the cake. Everyone happy.

[foxcommander]

Winner's Sauce

From the pages of Viz Comic, a "special ingredient" added by a restaurant/cafe/pub chef, solely of Y-chromosome, to a dish given to a famous and/or particularly disagreeable customer, namely a restaurant critic.

Takes its name from The Sunday Times restaurant critic and sometime film director, Michael Winner. A well-known trasher of both restaurants and chefs' reputations.

"See that Michael Winner over there? He's reckoned to have ingested more Winner's Sauce than Marc Almond"

[screenexile]

My only issue with it is the fact that it was clearly pre-meditated by one of the Gay Activist Groups but then I suppose these types of things need to be done in order to advance the gay equality agenda.

[Orior]

Reminds me of this video . . . still funny!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gimiDBAK2wA

Very good!

[J70]

My only issue with it is the fact that it was clearly pre-meditated by one of the Gay Activist Groups but then I suppose these types of things need to be done in order to advance the gay equality agenda.

Lots of changes in laws and society and equality issues in many countries have been brought about through the use of test cases. Nothing wrong with it.

[Sidney]

I don't see how the bakery discriminated against the customer on the basis of their sexual orientation. The reason for refusal of service was the message on the cake and not the customers sexual orientation.  If the customer had ordered a normal cake they wouldn't have refused service and if a straight person had ordered the same image it would probably have been refused.

The cake shop has to make the cake because they are a cake shop.  If I ordered a cake that said 'I love Samantha', I am not asking the cake shop to endorse that message or ask if Samantha is my wife/girlfriend/bit on the side, just to make the cake.

A gay person shouldn't have to cower in all the shops asking if they would mind making a cake.

It's a fair point. I think the judge has decided that the legislation is designed to rip away mealy-mouthed excuses for not serving someone. If it is accepted that someone doesn't have to make a cake with a gay message on the basis of their religion then they'll soon be claiming they can't serve someone at 2.20pm on a Tuesday afternoon because of their religion and it's a complete coincidence that the customer at that time happens to be gay.

Still, that's not to say there are no repercussions from such a decision. When a print shop in west Belfast is asked to produce t-shirts dedicated to the memory of the Shankill Butchers, don't say you weren't warned.

You are right, I was thinking that as well.  I guess the cake shop could refuse on the grounds of incitement to racial hatred in the example you give.

Another example (and I'm obv. playing devils advocate here) but I'm guessing that ruling means that the bogside branch of the t-shirt shop in question would now be forced to supply t-shirts dedicated to the great work of the parachute regiment?

That's the concern alright.

So what?