Christian Family face possible legal action

this is a very valid point made by DUP MLA Paul Givan

"What we cannot have is a hierarchy of rights, and today there's a clear hierarchy being established that gay rights are more important than the rights of people to hold religious beliefs."

I am quoting - his words not mine

The orderer of cake was not asking the bakers to be gay. Making a cake for someone is not "endorsing" whatever the slogan you put on the cake says, it's just doing your business without prejudice or discrimination against any of your customers.

The bakers can carry on thinking homosexuality is a sin. No-one is asking them to do anything other than be tolerant of others and to treat people equally whatever their race, religion or lack of religion, sexual orientation, age, etc, etc.

So the bakers and anyone else can hold whatever religious beliefs they like. Their beliefs and their religion (as they see it) is not affected.

BTW, what did Jesus ever say about homosexuality? Anything? Bet he, if he'd been a baker, would have made them a cake and decorated it as they desired.

I wonder what I would have done if I were a baker and asked to produce a cake with a swastika on it for instance. I would feel very strongly that should not do it - but would I be obliged to? I suppose I would feel that I was, by default, endorsing the message of such a symbol. Maybe this is what these bakers feel - I don't agree with them of course, but I am just trying to understand where they are coming from.

Yes, I agree Mishap, and I see from the news that Coleen Nolan is in trouble for saying something similar on Loose Women (although I think she referred to ISIS). The difference being, I suppose, that gay marriage doesn't represent a repressive or violent culture.

Didn't we do this quite thoroughly on this thread, last year?

Although I'm not quite so sure now as I was then. I just don't know. Are gay rights being given precedence over the rights of freedom to follow one's religious beliefs?

thjis is interesting (as Mollie has already referred to)

There is no UK law giving freedom to follow terrorists. I'm not sure about the Nazis. But it's entirely different.

How can you possibly know what Jesus would have done Bags. You don't even believe in him.

I can see Bags' point about not asking the bakers to be gay. Just to do business with homosexuals, as you would with the rest of the general public. But should there be exemptions for religious beliefs?

I don't know.

It wasn't really worth it all. It was only a bloody cake. They could have gone hnere Yum.

I believe Jesuses (lots of them, including one famous one) probably lived. I don't believe he is or was god. I don't know what he would do. Neither does anyone else, but thinking along the lines of "What would Jesus do?" brought me to that possible scenario.

I think the mistake a lot of people make is that they think their sacred beliefs should be sacred to everyone else as well when, really, that's unreasonable.

If there are certain kinds of law abiding and harmless people you cannot do business with perhaps you shouldn't run a business.

I think the mistake a lot of people make is that they think their sacred beliefs should be sacred to everyone else as well, when, really that's unreasonable.

Well said, bags. That, to me, is the crux of the issue - the conviction of some that they, and they alone are right and everyone else is wrong. Thereby lies the root of intolerance, political and religious, and all its ramifications, which are legion.

No! That's just so not so.

I am not sure what Jesus would have done.

My guess is that he would have wanted to bake them a cake. I suspect he couldnt have written those words though.

Why not?

It is actually quite difficult to put into words.

As a christian, we cannot spereate our beliefs from what we do. We dont have that get out clause.
So we have to make best guesses from what we know.

What we do and write and speak and everything, is judged. Putting something in the public arena that you dont agree with, and dont think God agrees with, comes back on you when you are judged, either which way.

I do think though, that christians make decisions daily, and this one probably wouldnt rank high in importance to God if we did or did not do the words on the cake.
At the end of the day, the instructions regarding this I dont think are covered in the bible[as far as I know], so we can only guess.

The instructions concerning homosexuality don't exist in the Bible, either, at least not in the New Testament. Instructions about heterosexuality don't either. Jesus makes no mention at all of sex. It had nothing to do with his message.

The nearest is the story of the woman taken in adultery, where she was about to be stoned to death (I don't think it mentions the punishment her lover was to get) Jesus' challenge to them was "Let him who is without sin among you cast the first stone" at which they all melted shamefacedly away. He sent the woman away saying "Go, and sin no more". Her sin was adultery, not sex.

The early Christian church did not concern itself with what anyone did in bed, they had other goals in view. It was later that the church extended its influence into every aspect of people's lives.

I think Jesus would find the way people treated one another more important than the precise nature of the physical expression of love.

Providing beliefs are genuine, then people – Christian or otherwise – cannot separate them from their actions with a good conscience. There is no "get out clause", an expression that implies an arrogant assumption of moral superiority.

This idea of being able to speak for what god thinks is quite amazing! (I am trying not to use the word arrogant, but it is sizzling around in my brain!). What a pity we do not all think he is thinking the same thing! How much happier the world might be.

The get out clause relates to chrisitians not being able to get out of things with God.

If christians do not speak about God, and what they think God wants, who is going to?
If we do not try to interpret what he wants, again, what is the point.

Leviticus describes male homosexuality as an 'abomination'. But then it describes lots of things as 'abominations' - wearing mixed fabrics for example. So not such a very serious 'sin' then. But somehow, some believers are fascinated by it and love to fulminate about it.

Belief is a choice, sexual orientation isn't.

I rather like the idea of god as patissier.