Refusing to bake ‘gay cake’ was not discrimination
CHRISTIAN bakers did not discriminate against an LGBT activist when they refused to ice the message “Support Gay Marriage” onto a cake, the Supreme Court has ruled.
Daniel and Amy Mcarthur, owners of the family-run Ashers bakery in Belfast, faced legal action from Gareth Lee in 2014 after refusing to decorate the cake with a message “with which they profoundly disagreed”.
Mr Lee initially won his case in 2015 and the subsequent appeal by the Mcarthurs in 2016, but the Supreme Court yesterday unanimously overturned the ruling after the couple argued that the law risked “extinguishing” their consciences.
Speaking outside the court, Mr Mcarthur said: “We always knew we hadn’t done anything wrong in turning down this order.
“We’re particularly pleased the Supreme Court emphatically accepted what we’ve said all along – we did not turn down this order because of the person who made it, but because of the message itself.
“I know a lot of people will be glad to hear this ruling today, because this ruling protects freedom of speech and freedom of conscience for everyone.”
Announcing the court’s decision, Lady Hale, its president, said that the Mcarthur family hold the belief that “the only form of marriage consistent with the Bible and acceptable to God is between a man and a woman”.
She said: “This conclusion is not in any way to diminish the need to protect gay people and people who support gay marriage from discrimination.
“It is deeply humiliating, and an affront to human dignity, to deny someone a service because of that person’s race, gender, disability, sexual orientation, religion or belief.
“But that is not what happened in this case.”
She continued: “As to Mr Lee’s claim based on sexual discrimination, the bakers did not refuse to fulfil his order because of his sexual orientation.
“They would have refused to make such a cake for any customer, irrespective of their sexual orientation.”
The court also said Mr Lee had no claim against Ashers on the grounds of religious belief or political opinion.
Lady Hale added: “The bakers could not refuse to supply their goods to Mr Lee because he was a gay man or supported gay marriage, but that is quite different from obliging them to supply a cake iced with a message with which they profoundly disagreed.”
The bakery’s appeal against the finding of discrimination was heard at the Supreme Court sitting in May. David Scoffield QC, for Ashers, argued that the courts were effectively forcing the firm to make a cake bearing a message with which they disagreed as a matter of religious conscience.
Speaking outside the court after yesterday’s decision, Mr Lee said the rejection of his cake order made him “feel like a second-class citizen”.
He said of the verdict: “I’m concerned not just for the implications for myself and other gay people, but for every single one of us.”
The decision of the Supreme Court in the great “gay cake” row is a victory not just for common sense but for freedom of expression. The affair began four years ago when a customer ordered a £36 sponge cake from Ashers bakery in Northern Ireland which refused his order. They did so not because he was gay but because they objected to the political slogan on the cake in support of gay marriage.
Under discrimination laws, it is a crime to refuse to serve someone because of their gender, sexuality, religion or age. But in this case, the couple who run the bakery were being criminalised for refusing to support a view with which they did not agree. It is extraordinary that two lower courts found against them before the Supreme Court ruled in their favour yesterday.
It has made the cake one of the most expensive ever ordered, albeit not baked. The Equalities Commission has spent an estimated £150,000 supporting the claimant and the Mcarthur family who manage the bakery have run up at least as much in costs funded by Christian supporters.
The case is emblematic of a growing intolerance towards deeply held Christian beliefs which is rarely applied to other religions. The judges cited protections enshrined in the European Court of Human Rights, but they go back much further than that to a time when we stopped locking people up or burning them at the stake for holding a view not considered “acceptable”.
The justices said there was a right “not to be obliged to manifest beliefs one does not hold.” It is shocking that it was necessary to go to the Supreme Court to establish what most people might have thought was a fundamental freedom.