Christian Family face possible legal action

This baker's job is to supply cakes! Exactly that.

I really don't want to think any further as to what this baker's solution would be to live in a world with his blatent disapproval of homosexuality.

I agree janeainsworth - I feel sure all concerned walked into this one with their eyes wide open and now feel validated in whichever side they took.

If you run a business, you abide by the law, simple really. What we do and say in the privacy of our own homes is (thankfully still) up to us, but when we're in a place of work we conform.

I'm sure many of us will have experienced either working alongside colleagues with views we disagree with, or having to work with customers/patients/service users with views we actively dislike. The same level of service applies to all, we can't discriminate, which is what the baker did. Ok the company is likely to have been set up, but I imagine anyone bright enough to run a successful business, is bright enough to consider the likely implications of the action they took here.

But lily, 'simply expressing disagreement with the views of others' is not what is the subject of legislation.
It is refusing to provide a service on the grounds of sexual orientation that is prohibited.
I agree with bags - the directors of the bakery were probably well aware of the legal consequences of refusing to make the cake.
I cannot help suspecting also, that those who commissioned the cake did so in the full knowledge of what the response would be - a perfect storm.

The baker's behaviour was intolerant. That is the problem. Intolerance has caused a lot of trouble in Northern Ireland. What a shame that it still does over something so silly as a cake.

You don't have to agree with everyone your work brings you in contact with. In nearly all cases, that is unless they are being violent towards you, you do have to tolerate them, and their views, while you are at work, however much you hate doing that.

It's not wrong to tolerate something you hate which does you no actual harm.

Expressing disagreement with views is not the same as refusing service because you disagree.

But a baker supplying a cake with a political statement on the icing is NOT the baker making a political statement. It's the cake orderer who's making the statement. The baker is making a cake. That is all.

That seems to be the trip up point

If this particular cake-ordering fiasco was a setup, then I think it was a mean thing to do. However, I also think the baker was a twit to jump straight into the trap screaming and yelling his moral outrage (so to speak).

"Currant buns in a baker's shop", as it were (you do all know the nursery song?) are not the place to argue about gay marriage.

People providing a service voluntarily also come under the discrimination legislation. Should simply expressing disagreement with the views of others be subject to legislation? The sounds to me like suppression of free speech big time. This baker's job is to supply cakes, not make political statements. That's the point. I cannot think of any other way of expressing this. I'm getting bored with saying it over and over again. If I'm bored, heaven knows what other posters feel.

Imagine a person employed to be hoist up on a swing thing to paste banners up on hoardings refusing to paste up a poster because he disagreed with whatever it was about. S/he'd be sacked.

What if it had been a shop assistant employed by the bakery directors who had refused to supply something that the bakery usually supplied to customers because s/he (the shop assistant) didn't agree with the writing on the cake? The bakery directors would be completely within their rights to sack that employee.

Because supplying decorated cakes is the job description. It doesn't matter who is ordering the cake or what the cake is for; it's business, and you're not allowed to discriminate against customers just because you don't agree with them.

I had various shop assistant jobs as a student. The rule always was that "the customer is right". You bend over backwards to keep them on side, i.e. supporting your business.

If you can't cope with that, don't set up business in public shops.

Public is the important word.

Morning, lily, jings, jane, et al.

"Is failing to display religious posters showing disrespect for Christian beliefs? If I were politely to refuse to advertise a gay pride march would that be imposing my views on others? Or discrimination, in a legal sense?"

No, lily, that wouldn't be showing disrespect for Christian beliefs. However, it would be a strange thing to do if it was your job to display posters for all kinds of events.

I think tolerance of others life views, approaches to life, in the public sphere of his chosen daily work, is what the baker lacked. He was asked to do something he does for a living, to provide a cake. He doesn't have to agree with the purpose of the cake (cakes with purpose! oh boy!) to just supply a customer with the cake they want.
If he had simply been in the habit of making cakes for friends out of the kindness of his heart (so it wasn't his job) and a friend asked him to supply the same 'gay pride' cake, his saying no, he'd rather not, would have been fine.

Sorry, I should have said 'Good morning, jings, bags

Is failing to display religious posters showing disrespect for Christian beliefs? If I were politely to refuse to advertise a gay pride march would that be imposing my views on others? Or discrimination, in a legal sense?

Human understanding and kindness works both ways Jings.
The bakery people could have said 'we don't like gay marriage, but we understand that people of a different sexual orientation to ourselves are entitled to tolerance and the same civil rights as heterosexual people, and so we will bake the cake as requested.'
God help any homosexual person born into the baking family

I haven't read you post, jings. I will in the morning. I wa going to bed and a thought crossed my mind which seemed pertinent to this thread.

That thing that keeps getting trotted out about respecting all beliefs? Where did that come in this bakery director's behaviour? Rhetorical question.

G'night all. Sleep tight.

Perhaps it comes down to the need for human understanding and kindness. Can't the mayor say, "Ok then. That's your view and you are entitled to it. I'll go to Greggs" (or wherever).

That's what would happen if decent commonsense prevailed.

So refusing to make the cake would have been taking action but refusing to decorate the cake as requested is not 'taking action'? I'm not sure I follow that.

The printing of the slogan would not have been endorsing the slogan. The baker was not asked to endorse a slogan or a political campaign. I think it's that that some people have difficulty with, including the bakery directors.

The slogan on the cake was in support of legislation, not an attack on gay people. It was a political statement. And I don't think expressing your opinion is discriminatory. Expressing your opinion abusively or offensively may well be regarded as discriminatory under equalities legislation. Taking action on the basis of your opinion may be discriminatory. They didn't refuse to make a cake. They refused to provide a political slogan with which they disagreed. The new heresies are failing to conform to liberal humanist attitudes.

Plus illegal doesn't necessarily mean immoral, just as immoral doesn't necessarily mean illegal. Just bye the bye.

What I've said still applies. The cake wasn't about his beliefs; it was about other people's beliefs.

He didn't refuse the order because the customer was gay, he refused on the grounds that the cause it was representing (i.e. gay marriage, illegal at present in NI) was against his beliefs.

If it comes to heresy, which is the heretical view in this story? And who is denouncing whom (or what) as heretical? Only the baker has denied someone something that they had a right to expect, namely the provision of cake to the customer's specifications. The baker presumably did not set up in business as a baker of cakes only for people whose views on life he approves of. Do we really think allowing that would be good for community harmony? The potential for chaos, of which Northern Ireland knwos too much already, is vast.

Having a heretical view and expressing a heretical view in words, spoken or written (all of which I fully support) is not the same as changing your behaviour towards people who have a different view from yours. That is the discriminatory bit, the change of behaviour.

His behaviour is saying that he thinks he's allowed to discriminate against gay customers in his job as a baker. The law says he's not allowed to so that. If he offers a baking service to the community he has to obey the democratically agreed community rules.

I do see the conscience difficulty but he is not breaking his belief code by printing something he disapprove of for a cake. He is saying that he's allowed to treat people differently according to his beliefs. The law says he isn't allowed to do that if he offers a service like cake making. If he can't bring himself to treat everyone the same he shouldn't have public shops.

Unless you think we shouldn't be able to express heretical views?