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#GayCake

Started by Cuellar, October 10, 2018, 11:49:59 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

Thomas

I think it's probably fair, too. You only have to imagine it the other way around. I would hope that a baker with liberal values would have the freedom not to put disagreeable messages on their products. If I was a caker, and a bunch of nuns came in ordering a batch of anti-abortion jam tarts, I'd like the freedom to say no (and fairness dictates that it must work both ways, however distasteful individual cases might seem).

You can't force these backwards bakers into the modern world. You can just hope they might change their hearts through conversation and reflection, respectfully disagree with their position in the meantime, and never buy a Bakewell from them ever again.

But, of course, then I think about the difference between gay marriage and abortion as civil rights matters, and my head hurts (like Fry's, on the previous page). Perhaps it's simply up to us as consumers to boycott bigoted bakers.

Natnar

If that was my cake i would have just shrugged my shoulders and gone to another bakery and forgotten about Ashers. Why waste time on people who are obviously not going to agree with who you are? It's almost as if the whole thing was a honey trap..

BlodwynPig

Couldn't they make the cake themselves? #lazygays

lankyguy95

Quote from: Barry Admin on October 10, 2018, 01:05:49 PM
Stonewall statement:

"in effect" - hmm...
Yeah that's exactly what it's not saying. Sounds like they read the headline and nothing else.

Edit: Peter Tatchell's statement on it is much better http://www.petertatchellfoundation.org/ashers-gay-cake-verdict-is-victory-for-freedom-of-expression/

Quote"This verdict is a victory for freedom of expression. As well as meaning that Ashers cannot be legally forced to aid the promotion of same-sex marriage, it also means that gay bakers cannot be compelled by law to decorate cakes with anti-gay marriage slogans," said human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, Director of the Peter Tatchell Foundation.

"Businesses can now lawfully refuse a customer's request to emblazon a political message if they have a conscientious objection to it. This includes the right to refuse messages that are sexist, xenophobic or anti-gay, which is a good thing.

"Although I profoundly disagree with Ashers opposition to marriage equality, in a free society neither they nor anyone else should be forced to facilitate a political idea that they oppose.

"The ruling does not permit anyone to discriminate against LGBT people. Such discrimination rightly remains unlawful.

"Ashers did not discriminate against the customer, Gareth Lee, because he was gay. They objected to the message he wanted on the cake: Support gay marriage.'

"Discrimination against LGBT people is wrong. But in a free society, people should be able to discriminate against ideas that they disagree with. I am glad the court upheld this important liberal principle.

"If the original judgement against Ashers had been upheld it would have meant that a Muslim printer could be obliged to publish cartoons of Mohammed and a Jewish printer could be forced to publish a book that propagates Holocaust denial. It could have also encouraged far right extremists to demand that bakers and other service providers facilitate the promotion of anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim opinions.

"That would have set a dangerous, authoritarian precedent that could have been open to serious abuse.

"Discrimination against people should be illegal but not discrimination against ideas and opinions," said Mr Tatchell.


Barry Admin

I'm absolutely facinated with the whole thing. I found this Question Time clip from 2015:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=LqYHM-2hlLo

And in that clip, everyone agrees that the bakery shouldn't be allowed to discriminate. But they don't really engage with the issue in any depth at all, indeed Colleen Nolan is mocked for the sort of theoretical examples we gave here.

You can position the case in two ways - it's either about discrimination, or about freedom of expression, and the weighting given tends to colour people's reposes, I guess.

checkoutgirl

It is an interesting debate about religious freedom and political correctness. Where's the line to be drawn? On a cake it seems.

biggytitbo

I like the idea of the far right using cakes as campaigning tools. If Hitler had written Mein Kamf in icing would the war have turned out different I wonder? Makes you think.

checkoutgirl

Quote from: popcorn on October 10, 2018, 01:06:14 PM
My initial uneducated reaction is that the ruling makes sense. The customer wasn't refused because of their sexuality - a straight person could ask for the same cake and would be turned down.

Also if the gay people had just asked for a plain cake or say a cake with "Happy Birthday Glenn" written on it they would be sold the item and no harm done. It depends what you call discrimination. I would say discrimination is you're a pair of gays, get out of my shop and don't darken my door again. Which isn't what happened.

If the cake shop owners were gay and a lunatic came in asking for a cake saying "Ban Gay Marriage" would it be wrong for the cakemakers to refuse to make the cake?

checkoutgirl

Quote from: biggytitbo on October 10, 2018, 01:34:02 PM
If Hitler had written Mein Kamf in icing would the war have turned out different I wonder?

The cake would have been absolutely massive. Or had tiny writing.

checkoutgirl

Fair play to Thatchell, fully agree. Although I would have gone with "Pork Chops Are Great" rather than holocaust denial for the Jewish example but you can't have everything.

Fry

Would I be a hypocrite for thinking that if they were to refuse to supply a regular wedding cake to a gay couple (say it's just a regular old wedding cake, but it has two blokes or two women on top, rather than one of each), then that definitely is discriminatory. In my mind, supplying a wedding cake is part and parcel of being a baker and therefore the only reason you're refusing this particular customer is because of their sexual orientation. The difference comes down to the fact that, as popcorn said earlier, in this case it's something they could conceivably deny a straight couple.

checkoutgirl

Quote from: Fry on October 10, 2018, 01:50:44 PM
Would I be a hypocrite for thinking that if they were to refuse to supply a regular wedding cake to a gay couple (say it's just a regular old wedding cake, but it has two blokes or two women on top, rather than one of each), then that definitely is discriminatory. In my mind, supplying a wedding cake is part and parcel of being a baker and therefore the only reason you're refusing this particular customer is because of their sexual orientation. The difference comes down to the fact that, as popcorn said earlier, in this case it's something they could conceivably deny a straight couple.

I think that would be discriminatory yes because it's not expressing a political view.

What kind of madman gets "Support X, Y or Z" written on a cake anyway? Birthdays, weddings and maybe christenings are the only reason to write on a cake.

biggytitbo

That is subtly different in that I think the main point here is people shouldn't be forced to promote campaigns and ideas they don't agree with, and this was explicitly a campaign slogan. I think it'd be different if it was a cake with a picture of two blokes on, unless they were rimjobbing or something, but that is presumably covered by the obscene publications act anyway.

Cuellar

Yes fair enough Tatchers.

Looks like I'm going to have to try and do my "All Crisps Are Shit And Disgusting" cake on my own.

poodlefaker

What if a Jewish couple asked for a Happy Hanukah cake?

thraxx


Couldn't they not just have made the cake pink?

biggytitbo

What if it was an elaborate cake of a marzipan penis entering a sponge anus?

checkoutgirl

Quote from: biggytitbo on October 10, 2018, 02:14:22 PM
What if it was an elaborate cake of a marzipan penis entering a sponge anus?

Isn't that what it was? I'd object on the grounds that I hate marzipan.

gilbertharding

If anyone knows the whereabouts of cake bakers who are Jehovah's Witnesses, I'll be in need of a birthday cake in the next few weeks...

Barry Admin

Quote from: checkoutgirl on October 10, 2018, 02:19:28 PM
Isn't that what it was? I'd object on the grounds that I hate marzipan.

Marzipan is between a man and his conscience.

Fry

The only law regarding cakes should regarding the inclusion of carrots, bananas or cheese. Imagine tricking someone into thinking they're gonna have a lovely cake then revealing it's got one of those in it. A perversion way above a bit of buggery.

Lemming

Yeah, this is the right decision. Nobody should be forced to make the GAY CAKE.

The bakers are shooting themselves in the foot, though - socially and financially. As someone who may one day have need of a GAY CAKE for my own GAY WEDDING, I would pay an absolute premium for the aforementioned 3-meter-long marzipan cock pulverising a jam-filled sponge arsehole.

Buelligan

A finger of fudge was good enough in the olden days.  People knew their place and managed their expectations accordingly.

pancreas

Marzipan is gay, yes. Sometimes we give each other Aids at infection parties and there's always some little marzipan animals to eat when participation in the stringent regime of rough sex leaves you feeling a little peckish.

Jittlebags

This has gone all Fru T Bunn all of a sudden. Donought va jay nays vajazzled with hundreds amd thousands, and chocolate eclairs, all erect.

Fry

Soufflé is the gayest cake because it has the gayest looking name.

Barry Admin

Quote from: pancreas on October 10, 2018, 02:47:18 PM
Marzipan is gay, yes. Sometimes we give each other Aids at infection parties and there's always some little marzipan animals to eat when participation in the stringent regime of rough sex leaves you feeling a little peckish.

Hardly surprising you don't have time to bake your own cakes then.

a duncandisorderly

turning away paying customers for any reason is a shit move. no laws were being broken here though.

Cloud

I'm on the side of seeing this as a good decision.  And I'm somewhere on the scale between bisexual and gay myself, so not homophobic, and really don't believe I'm "internally oppressed" either.  Don't troll religious fundamentalist bakers by trying to ask them to ice a message that goes against their beliefs, it's pointlessly antagonistic, pick one of the plenty of non-religious bakers, it's not that hard.  But that kind of common sense doesn't come with a big fat payout if you win a legal case against them does it.