Christian Family face possible legal action

Wearing mixed fabrics!

I'm sorry you didn't understand my brief post back there Ariadne. I only managed to get that much out before my brain seemed to go quite numb.

You having a go at humour absent?

Bless.

I think it is the way in which this cake was ordered. It wasn't an innocent person going into any bakery ordering a cake which was about two gay people being together. It sounds like they were targeted for their Christian beliefs and that they were then tested as to whether they would make this cake.

My objection is the fact, and I said this at the time, that they used children's characters on a cake to portray grown up issues. What on earth have Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street got to do with gays? My daughter watched this in all innocence and children should be able to do so now without the connotation that it is associated with gay men.

If the police had done something similar, it would have been labelled a sting, and been inadmissable in court.

I do feel sorry for the bakers and am not against gay people at all, my sister is gay. But there are extremists in all walks of life and I do think these were out to cause trouble.

I don't feel sorry for the bakers.

It would not surprise me if such a cake was requested as a challenge to the company concerned which I think is really unfair. (I can't quite work out why that seems wrong to me though.) It's too late at night to puzzle that one.
I wonder how that company would react to being asked to make a Diwali cake or an Eid cake. (If they have such things.)

I wonder if this bakery would have cooked a passover cake for David and Jonathans wedding.

I don't think it's unfair to test businesses on how they handle equality issues. Egalitarianism in business means you treat customers the same however much their beliefs conflict with yours. In short, people's beliefs about marriage and homosexuality are irrelevant. That's what the bakers in this story don't get. They think their rules have to apply to others. Well, they need to learn that equality rules apply to them and that their beliefs have no privileges to exempt them from the same law as everyone else has to abide by.

They think they've been treated unfairly. No, they've been treated equally.

I agree with you Rubylady and have sympathy for the bakers. I think they were set up.

I haven't read all this thread and I may be missing something but surely no one wants to go back to the days(not so long ago), when people were free to place notices saying ' no blacks, no irish etc.'
It is not Northern Ireland's Christians being picked on. Instead it is Northern Ireland, with its recent history of blatant discrimination which is out of step with modern Britain.

@thatbags - that's right. But they think they are being discriminated against because they aren't being allowed to discriminate against others...

The phrase 'set up' is emotive and in this case perjorative and as was said ^ but so what if the bakers were being tested? There have been many examples of discrimination being uncovered by such 'tests'. For example, with landlords or employers discriminating against certain ethnic groups. Christians use discrimination legislation when they think they are being discriminated against, so talk about hypocrisy? As was also said ^ NI has a long and dishonourable tradition of discriminating agsinst not only gay people but alo RCs - not too keen in women either.

Don't know where italics came from

Yes I do now - oops

Had I been one of the gay couple, I would not have made a fuss about this, I would merely have taken my business somewhere else, and said to the bakers "Your loss".

And what message would that have sent?

Nobody was trying to force the bakers to enter into a same sex marriage. They were hardly going to endanger their immortal souls by doing a bit of icing that they didn't agree with.
In our bakers there is an advert for a meeting with a film - it is being held by the Baptist study group and the lesbian/gay/transgender student group.

This case wasn't about the bakers refusing to make a wedding cake for gay men.It was about the picture of Bert and Ernie and the slogan to be iced of
'Support Gay Marriage' in words next to them.Why would the men have wanted this on their cake anyway?Very strange.

It's up to them why they wanted it. They were customers and the bakery had a legal obligation to not discriminate. It's very very simple

How about this?
www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/gay-cake-converted-entire-tray-of-bread-rolls-to-homosexuality-2015052098454

Do companies offering such services not have any rights to refuse any particular commission?
What if they were asked to send a cake decorated with an abusive message to someones ex? It's just a thought.

(The gay cake jokes are rife on Face Book.)

I don't think it's about the actual cake at all. It's about what religious freedom really means. And whether it is right for the law to intervene in cases like this.

On the whole, I think they would have been better advised to accept the order, and made the cake. But then I suppose they could have been accused of going against their religious principles.

Too hard for me!

Nelliemoser - I love the gay cake converted bread rolls to homosexuality picture. I see no reason why the men couldn't picture the sesame characters along with their chosen slogan. It's illegal to discriminate on the grounds of sexuality so for me, case proven. I have pondered the question raised by a number of posters about what would happen in a similar case if the bakers were asked to decorate a cake with abusive messages to an ex partner, or in praise of Isis as suggested earlier.

I suspect that as such messages would not be illegal but may be seen as threatening or in bad taste, the baker's would legally be able to refuse to take the work. Do we have any lawyer's who can clarify.