Gay Cake Controversy!

floggg · 08-07-2014 12:03pm

I Heart Internet wrote: »

Cakes aren't pedantic but political sloganing often is.

No, if a baker declines to bake a civil partnership cake I would not try to force him or her to do so.

And if they declined to serve black customers is that ok with you to?

Dyr · 08-07-2014 12:03pm

Awkward Badger wrote: »

Wasn't there a commandment or something that went "thou shalt not have thy cake and eat it?"

I dont think the bible approved of confectionery

GOD Hates Cakes!

OldNotWIse · 08-07-2014 12:04pm

lazygal wrote: »

Now I know which bakery to avoid in that neck of the woods. WTF is a bakery run on Christian values anyway?

Maybe they give all their profit to charity :rolleyes:

Seedy Arling · 08-07-2014 12:06pm

OldNotWIse wrote: »

Maybe they give all their profit to charity :rolleyes:

No way, they knead their dough.

floggg · 08-07-2014 12:08pm

Azwaldo55 wrote: »

If these Christian bakers don't want to bake a gay cake then why f*cking make them? Leave them alone!
Imagine if you went into a Halal or a Kosher restaurant and demanded roast pork? Why would you do that unless you were stirring it up?
I don't go around forcing everyone I see to agree with me. I am a passionate Man U fan but I don't insist all my friends support my team do I?

The bakery already makes and decorates cakes to order. You aren't asking them to do anything they don't already do.

The same laws apply to Muslim restaurants too it requires them to sell their existed goods or services to all on equal terms (same as bakers) - which means serving women and non-Muslims.

It wouldn't require them to serve pork, just as it wouldn't require a baker to start selling pride flags to gay people.

Davarus Walrus · 08-07-2014 12:09pm

Seedy Arling wrote: »

No way, they knead their dough.

At the end of the day we all need a slice of the action.

Donkey Oaty · 08-07-2014 12:09pm

Bambi wrote: »

I bet cake is never mentioned in the bible

It is, e.g. Jeremiah 7:18

The children gather wood, the fathers kindle fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes for the queen of heaven.

However, this is the more appropriate one, from Ezekiel 4:12

And you shall eat it as a barley cake, baking it in their sight on human dung.

OldNotWIse · 08-07-2014 12:10pm

Now I want cake

jimgoose · 08-07-2014 12:11pm

OldNotWIse wrote: »

Now I want cake

I want Gay Cake. It sounds delightfully avant-garde, dearie! :pac:

dxhound2005 · 08-07-2014 12:12pm

floggg wrote: »

And if they declined to serve black customers is that ok with you to?

If they declined to serve the black customer because they were black that would be wrong. If the black customer asked to have a political message on a cake with which the bakery didn't agree they should have the right not to do that particular transaction. They have refused custom before because the customers wanted pornographic images or offensive language on the cakes.

OldNotWIse · 08-07-2014 12:13pm

jimgoose wrote: »

I want Gay Cake. It sounds delightfully avant-garde, dearie! :pac:

I really fancy a pulled pork Muslim cake

Pumpkinseeds · 08-07-2014 12:15pm

Slow news day? The gays who ordered the cake get publicity for being discriminated against. The bakery gets publicity for being good catholics, or whatever their religion is. Everyone's a winner. But seriously folks, it's a cake, a fricking cake. Nothing important happening in the world, really, nothing at all

Azwaldo55 · 08-07-2014 12:18pm

floggg wrote: »

The bakery already makes and decorates cakes to order. You aren't asking them to do anything they don't already do.

The same laws apply to Muslim restaurants too it requires them to sell their existed goods or services to all on equal terms (same as bakers) - which means serving women and non-Muslims.

It wouldn't require them to serve pork, just as it wouldn't require a baker to start selling pride flags to gay people.

The bakers are devout Christians and they don't want to bake a gay wedding cake because of their deeply held religious views. The LGBT activists are harassing them. They should be told to f*ck off. I don't agree with the Christian bakers' views but I believe that they should be free to do business with whomever they please.

dxhound2005 · 08-07-2014 12:18pm

Pumpkinseeds wrote: »

Slow news day? The gays who ordered the cake get publicity for being discriminated against. The bakery gets publicity for being good catholics, or whatever their religion is. Everyone's a winner. But seriously folks, it's a cake, a fricking cake. Nothing important happening in the world, really, nothing at all

Stephen Nolan devoted the first hour of his programme on Radio Ulster this morning to the subject. Nothing about flegs or Garth Brooks which was a blessed relief.

The name of the shop is actually from the Bible as explained in the video in this article.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/ashers-baking-company-faces-court-for-refusing-order-for-gay-marriage-cake-30412923.html

jimgoose · 08-07-2014 12:20pm

OldNotWIse wrote: »

I really fancy a pulled pork Muslim cake

I'll Passover on that one.

wow sierra · 08-07-2014 12:21pm

I Heart Internet wrote: »

A black family is not a political campaign.

A gay person or family is not a political campaign.

A campaign poster/cake for gay marriage is a political campaign.

A business should have the right to decline business it doesn't want, in particular for political campaigns it doesn't wish to be involved in.

I think that's the issue - they didn't refuse to bake a cake for an individual Gay wedding, that would be different. There was a story recently about an Irish actor who was the Poster boy (literally on all their posters) for UKIP in an Anti Immigration campaign. Now personally if I owned a bakery I wouldn't want my Bakery name on a UKIP anti immigration propaganda cake. I don't think it would be right to prosecute me for refusing.

osarusan · 08-07-2014 12:22pm

floggg wrote: »

If however it was just a wedding cake for a gay couple (which has been refused in numerous other cases) would you or other posters support them refusing it?

floggg wrote: »

Would you also support their right to refuse black people on grounds of their race?

floggg wrote: »

So if the only wanted to be associated with a white market that's fine?

floggg wrote: »

And if they declined to serve black customers is that ok with you to?

Will you stop with all these strawman arguments?

Donkey Oaty · 08-07-2014 12:24pm

dxhound2005 wrote: »

The name of the shop is actually from the Bible as explained in the video in this article.

Asher sold his brother into slavery.

This gets worse and worse.

--LOS-- · 08-07-2014 12:25pm

I see stories like this pop up all the time, I don't really understand the response in this thread, I think the people who ordered the cake had every right to stand up for themselves. What do those shop owners think of people who are christian and gay eh? Some opinions are not respectable and you cannot just behave the way you like and expect people to respect your opinion, that's nonsense.

gozunda · 08-07-2014 12:26pm

That's it ... Cake wars - you can forget about the Troubles!

Edit:
The Glorious Cake
The Battle of the Cake
The Baking Season
The Cake Commision
....

coffee_cake · 08-07-2014 12:26pm

--LOS-- wrote: »

I see stories like this pop up all the time, I don't really understand the response in this thread, I think the people who ordered the cake had every right to stand up for themselves. What do those shop owners think of people who are christian and gay eh? Some opinions are not respectable and you cannot just behave the way you like and expect people to respect your opinion, that's nonsense.

It was an activist asking for a political cake.

Not to mention it doesn't matter if you have disagreeable opinions, I think a private business should still have basic right of refusal.

mackerski · 08-07-2014 12:29pm

On the one hand it seems to me that any business creating decorated cakes has to have some discretion in the material they will put out. The earlier comments about copyright infringement are spot on (or would be, assuming the bakery always declines to produce infringing material when asked). Similarly, although willy-shaped cakes wouldn't offend me personally, I don't see how you can force any bakery to create one.

But let's get away from this one incident and what may be indeed be a mischievous stunt calculated to provoke a confrontation. In the video it was remarked on about how many key staff members are Christians and the Christian ethos of the bakery was played up. Am I wrong to conclude that this ethos could impact the hiring process? Perhaps all staff are Christians. Maybe they are even all a particular denomination of Christian. That might be reasonable for a priesthood or a branch of the Veritas bookshop, but my understanding of employment law suggests that vertically integrating a bakery with religion could be a bit dodgy. It wasn't OK for shipyards, so why a bakery?

08-07-2014 12:34pm

--LOS-- wrote: »

What do those shop owners think of people who are christian and gay eh?

Well if the Gay Christian claims to be part of a denomination that expressly forbids homosexuality then most people would probably think that they're engaging in some pretty serious cognitive dissonance.

perfectblue · 08-07-2014 12:34pm

if a gay couple came in and asked for a regular bland-tasting dry sponge with some hideous floral motif in icing (you know, like most heterosexual couples have at weddings), would the bakery go ahead with the order? if the couple wanted two men as cake toppers? i get that the bakery didn't want to put a specific message on the cake, but at what point would they have been ok with making the cake, and at what point would they have refused? i think that's the question here.
you can of course refuse to decorate a cake a certain way for a number of reasons (copyright usually a big one; good taste another). and you can of course hold all sorts of personal beliefs, discriminatory or otherwise. but the law is usually quite clear on what BUSINESSES are allowed to do, and discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation is not allowed.
if a straight couple came in and asked for this same cake, i imagine the bakery still would have refused. in this case, it would be hard to say the business was discriminating against its customers.

floggg · 08-07-2014 12:34pm

Azwaldo55 wrote: »

The bakers are devout Christians and they don't want to bake a gay wedding cake because of their deeply held religious views. The LGBT activists are harassing them. They should be told to f*ck off. I don't agree with the Christian bakers' views but I believe that they should be free to do business with whomever they please.

It that's your view that's your view. I assume you apply that logic to all minority groups and protected classes - race, sex, religion, gender, marital status etc.?

However that sort of freedom to discriminate leads to dark places - segregation, refusal of houses, refusal of employment etc.

Of all places, it's hard to see how unchecked racist/sectarian discrimination could have drastic consequences in the north.

So while it's all well and good for a majority group to see they should have freedom to do business with whoever you like, when you are in a minority and have no protection from this sort of thing you can soon find yourself excluded from or discriminated against many aspects of life. We have seen that sort of thing all too often.

So while some individual results might not always sit well with me I am very glad those laws are there.

--LOS-- · 08-07-2014 12:34pm

bluewolf wrote: »

It was an activist asking for a political cake.

Not to mention it doesn't matter if you have disagreeable opinions, I think a private business should still have basic right of refusal.

Ye I'm fully aware of the story. They may claim they're not homophobic and it's simply against their beliefs, religion is not an excuse in my eyes though. I would rather whoever was looking for the cake actually just speak to the owners in person, rather than sending a messenger in the form of the equality commission, but I'm guessing they deal with this thing a little too often.

They're a private business, they can pick and choose custom if they like, doesn't make it right. It's not about being pc, it's about standing up for yourself. If the customer has no issue giving business to a company that has differing views to them, why should the business.

kunst nugget · 08-07-2014 12:35pm

floggg wrote: »

The bakery already makes and decorates cakes to order. You aren't asking them to do anything they don't already do.

The same laws apply to Muslim restaurants too it requires them to sell their existed goods or services to all on equal terms (same as bakers) - which means serving women and non-Muslims.

It wouldn't require them to serve pork, just as it wouldn't require a baker to start selling pride flags to gay people.

I haven't been able to watch the video so correct me if anything I say is incorrect but it's not really comparing like for like as such. If they had previously been making cakes that had slogans that ran counter to their religious beliefs ('Happy Pre-marital Sex, Amy!) to straight people but then refused to do the same for gay people then that's obvious discrimination.

In principle, I support the right to let them run their business based on their religious beliefs if they apply those ideals strictly to ALL members of society. I also support people boycotting business if they are run at odds to their own principles. But I get a sense of entrapment from this and people trying to whip up a internet hate mob on this bakery here.

Personally, I wouldn't shop there based on their beliefs but then I wouldn't get myself in a frenzy over it either. Things like this harden stances on both sides and don't do anyone any good imo.

K-9 · 08-07-2014 12:35pm

lazygal wrote: »

Now I know which bakery to avoid in that neck of the woods. WTF is a bakery run on Christian values anyway?

Doesn't make fairy cakes or something.

osarusan · 08-07-2014 12:37pm

--LOS-- wrote: »

If the customer has no issue giving business to a company that has differing views to them, why should the business.

I would guess that the very reason the company got their business in the first place, was because it had differing views to them.

_Redzer_ · 08-07-2014 12:37pm

Can't wait until I get to open my Muslim bakery!

Seriously, a religious bakery? How retarded. Just bake the fúcking cake

Gay Cake Controversy!

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