Bakery’s refusal of anti-gay cake ‘not discriminatory’

THE Workplace Relations Commission has ruled that a bakery did not discriminate against a man when refusing to bake a €700 cake with an anti-gay marriage message.

In May of last year, the man placed a cake order with the bakery with the words ‘BY THE GRACE OF THE GOOD LORD, I [name redacted], that in my honest opinion – “GAY MARRIAGE” IS A PERVERSION OF EQUALITY and the 34th Amendment to the Irish Constitution should be REPEALED’.

The man told the WRC hearing that he was taking the action against the bakery in Co. Dublin under the Equal Status Act in response to a Belfast court case which had found that Ashers bakery had discriminated against a gay man when refusing to take an order of a ‘Bert and Ernie’ cake with a pro-gay marriage message.

The man told the WRC hearing he placed the order for this cake both to test and ‘balance out’ the Ashers bakery case. In response to the order, the bakery told the man they were extremely busy and had to close their order book for bespoke cakes.

As an alternative, they were offering a ‘more simple version’ of the order, that is, that they would bake a cake but that an edible topping be made elsewhere, with a suggestion that a search of the internet should be successful in that regard. The man claimed the bakery had no intention of making a cake with the message he wanted and this amounted to unfair treatment and discrimination on religious grounds.

The complainant replied that the opening seven words, “By The Grace Of The Good Lord”, made it clear that he was expressing his religious beliefs.

At the hearing, the managing director of the bakery said that she did not know the complainant’s religion or religious persuasion at any stage before, during and after this incident. She also said she had no difficulty with the wording.

She said the order was very complicated in terms of the different colours, tone, the use of capital letters, the font, etc. Also, there were 49 words in the message which was considerably above what would be the norm in any message. She also stated that other orders were turned away at that time as their order book for bespoke cakes was full and she could provide evidence of this.

In response to a question from Adjudication Officer, Ian Barrett if the cake’s wording was the real issue, the managing director replied they didn’t get past the ability to see if the order was viable and it wasn’t.

In his ruling, Mr Barrett said: ‘I do not believe that prima facie evidence was heard to prove that the complainant’s order was refused because of his religious beliefs and/ or that the respondent refused to make this cake because the complainant is a Christian.’ Mr Barrett said ‘the complaint fails’.