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Anti-gay legislation proposed in Northern Ireland

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Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,106 ✭✭✭Daith


    padd b1975 wrote: »
    Having someone express the view they don't agree with gay marriage is homophobia??

    Having someone express the view they don't agree with interracial marriage is racist??
    Personally I don't see any compelling reason to force a business owner to act in a manner which contravenes their religious beliefs, it's got nothing to do with equality, and more to do with how businesses which provide a service to the public are regulated.

    Rubbish. Why should a religious belief over rule the law of a country?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,647 ✭✭✭lazybones32


    Daith wrote: »
    Once again, the only victims of homophobia are the homophobes.


    Are you calling me homophobic? I was under the impression that homosexuals were the victims of homophobia...I suffer neither hate for, nor fear of, homosexuals.

    Interesting to see how quick you are to throw that word around. Another tool/tactic?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 663 ✭✭✭FairytaleGirl


    arayess wrote: »
    my neighbour is an old woman who has bedsits and refuses to let to unmarried couples.
    It has never caused a row people just move on.

    Taking her to court would be a travesty fo justice , she wants a certain (misguided imo ) level of decorum in her establishment (paid for by her earnings) I really don't see why people are going bananas over stuff like this.

    People getting upset over others not approving of this lifestyle is sensitive in the extreme .
    Yes you shouldn't abused over it or discriminated by state services.
    But if a shop doesn't want to make gay slogans so be it, go to the next one.

    Why this forcing of acceptance on people and not just leave them to it which is want I always understood gay people wanted anyway - to be left carry on living their lives. Why the deserve to enforce that on people who would rather not get involved and want to be left alone.

    Would you have the same belief if it was towards mixed race couples? A white woman/black man?
    Because at the end of the day it's treating people as lesser because of something (their relationship) that's really no one else's business.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,106 ✭✭✭Daith


    Are you calling me homophobic?

    Nope but feel free to jump to conclusions again.
    Interesting to see how quick you are to throw that word around. Another tool/tactic?

    I used that word once. You've used it more than me.

    I actually think the bakery shouldn't have to had put the slogan on a cake. I don't support the new bill though.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,647 ✭✭✭lazybones32


    Daith wrote: »
    Nope but feel free to jump to conclusions again.

    I guess I must have been mistaken then. When someone replies to a post of mine by referencing homophobia and homophobics, there is no insinuation. No underhanded, immature, cowardly tactics.
    Maybe choose your words more carefully?*


    * as if you didn't.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,106 ✭✭✭Daith


    I guess I must have been mistaken then.

    Yes! Thanks.
    Maybe choose your words more carefully?*

    I'll use the word homophobia if I want to? Again, wasn't calling you a homophobe. Or anyone. It was a general statement just to be clear.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,905 ✭✭✭✭Bob24


    I don't think hyperbole is helping the argument.

    Reading the article, it says "The Equality Commission has brought a civil case against Ashers Baking Company after it refused to bake a cake with a pro-gay marriage slogan.".

    I don't really see the issue here. The business was not refusing to serve a gay customer because the customer is gay - they were refusing to print a slogan on their product that is contrary to their own belief.
    If they can be blamed for this, a Republican Northern Irish baker should also be blamed for refusing to print "Long life to British Ireland" on a cake.

    The thing is blown out of proportion because the gay and religious lobbies are thrown into the mix and have both decided to get some publicity out if this.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,681 ✭✭✭bodice ripper


    Lols if someone uses said clause to not serve the Irish.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,106 ✭✭✭Daith


    Bob24 wrote: »
    The thing is blown out of proportion because the gay and religious lobbies are thrown into the mix and have both decided to get some publicity out if this.

    On both parts I think.

    As I said, I don't think the bakery should have been in trouble for not printing the slogan.

    However I don't think the answer is a religious freedom of choice bill.

    The issue is with the slogan not gay people or religious people. It could have been any slogan or message.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,361 ✭✭✭✭One eyed Jack


    Daith wrote: »
    Rubbish. Why should a religious belief over rule the law of a country?


    It's not over-ruling any law? Religion is one of the nine grounds on which a person cannot be discriminated against, and that's why there is a suggestion of a 'hierarchy of discrimination' where a business would be forced to act in a way which contravenes it's business owners religious beliefs.

    Would you like it if you were a business owner who was forced to act in a manner which contravenes you moral and ethical standards? I certainly wouldn't.

    To give you an example - I'm self-employed, I provide my services to people as I see fit, I can deny my services to people for any reason I see fit and I've never had anyone try to take me to court for it. I have refused business before from people for numerous reasons which didn't fit in with my moral and ethical standards.

    The law in NI as it currently stands means that I would be forced to provide my services to someone I had a moral or ethical objection to provide my services for. It's effectively telling me that I cannot choose who I shall work for, and if a legal challenge were to arise from me refusing to provide my services to anyone for any reason, I'd shut up shop in the morning because I would no longer have that essential element of control over my own business.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,905 ✭✭✭✭Bob24


    Would you have the same belief if it was towards mixed race couples? A white woman/black man?
    Because at the end of the day it's treating people as lesser because of something (their relationship) that's really no one else's business.

    If a baker doesn't want to print a slogan promoting mixed race couples, I don't see why they should be forced to do so (I am part of a mixed couple myself).

    Of course if they were refusing to sell a cake to my partner and I because she is not white, I would have a big issue with this ... but that is a very different question.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,106 ✭✭✭Daith


    The law in NI as it currently stands means that I would be forced to provide my services to someone I had a moral or ethical objection to provide my services for. It's effectively telling me that I cannot choose who I shall work for, and if a legal challenge were to arise from me refusing to provide my services to anyone for any reason, I'd shut up shop in the morning because I would no longer have that essential element of control over my own business.

    I don't have a problem with that. If you can't operate within the law of the land then you shouldn't operate a business.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,106 ✭✭✭Daith


    Bob24 wrote: »
    If a baker doesn't want to print a slogan promoting mixed race couples, I don't see why they should be forced to do so (I am part of a mixed couple myself).

    Of course if they were refusing to sell a cake to my partner and I because she is not white, I would have a big issue with this ... but that is a very different question.

    Except the bill in question came from the first example but would allow the second example to happen.

    That's my issue. It should be about the first issue.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 18,184 ✭✭✭✭Lapin


    Very inaccurate and misleading thread title.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,063 ✭✭✭Kiwi in IE


    I think religion in the public sphere is a serious problem and I think religious people are completely delusional. If I was to open a bakery and tell everyone who came in for a Christening/Confirmation cake that I disagree with religion and refuse to make the cake on those grounds, I would be behaving like a dick! I imagine there would also be grounds for a legal challenge on the basis of religious discrimination.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,905 ✭✭✭✭Bob24


    Daith wrote: »
    On both parts I think.

    As I said, I don't think the bakery should have been in trouble for not printing the slogan.

    However I don't think the answer is a religious freedom of choice bill.

    The issue is with the slogan not gay people or religious people. It could have been any slogan or message.

    Absolutely agreed. The gay activist tried to pose as a victim to get publicity for his cause, and as there was a religious aspect involved religious lobbies pushed for a law that is based on religious beliefs, as if non-religious people were not allowed to have a conscience and use it not to promote something they don't believe in.

    Both time wasters as far as I am concerned.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 156 ✭✭Cuban Pete


    arayess wrote: »
    my neighbour is an old woman who has bedsits and refuses to let to unmarried couples.
    It has never caused a row people just move on.

    Taking her to court would be a travesty fo justice , she wants a certain (misguided imo ) level of decorum in her establishment (paid for by her earnings) I really don't see why people are going bananas over stuff like this.

    People getting upset over others not approving of this lifestyle is sensitive in the extreme .
    Yes you shouldn't abused over it or discriminated by state services.
    But if a shop doesn't want to make gay slogans so be it, go to the next one.

    I think this is where the trouble lies. See, it's not a "lifestyle", it's an integral part of one's being. It's no more a "lifestyle" than the colour of one's skin is, or what have you.
    Why this forcing of acceptance on people and not just leave them to it which is want I always understood gay people wanted anyway - to be left carry on living their lives. Why the deserve to enforce that on people who would rather not get involved and want to be left alone.

    What if you wanted to get some groceries but the shop in your town won't serve you? What if none of them within a twenty mile radius will? Extreme example, I know but I'm doing so to illustrate a point - living in a society means our actions very often affect other people. Especially if you're operating a business.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,361 ✭✭✭✭One eyed Jack


    Daith wrote: »
    I don't have a problem with that. If you can't operate within the law of the land then you shouldn't operate a business.


    There's the law of the land, which has nothing to do with equality legislation, and then there's company law which a business operates under, which also has nothing to do with equality legislation, and then there's employment law, which has everything to do with equality legislation.

    There's no rule under company law that says any business has to provide it's services to a member of the public in a way which contravenes it's ethos. If a business doesn't want to provide their services to you for any reason, they're not breaking any law. They can do as the Equality Commission has decided to do, bring a civil case against you, claiming discrimination, but they're unlikely to get anywhere, and all the introduction of this clause is doing is recognising that fact.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,106 ✭✭✭Daith


    Bob24 wrote: »
    Both time wasters as far as I am concerned.

    Very much agreed so. I've very much against militant types whether it's gay people or religious people or whoever.

    As if NI didn't have enough history of two sides with different views anyway.

    Utter nonsense and overreacting.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 18,996 ✭✭✭✭gozunda


    No, that's not what the law is about at all. The 'conscience clause' being proposed is that nobody should be made to conduct their business in a manner in which they have an objection to, based on their religious beliefs. That's a good thing for some people, and a bad thing for other people. It just depends upon which side of the fence you're on.

    Personally I don't see any compelling reason to force a business owner to act in a manner which contravenes their religious beliefs, it's got nothing to do with equality, and more to do with how businesses which provide a service to the public are regulated.

    If a business refuses to offer their services to a person for any reason, that's an inconvenience to the person, granted, but there are many other service providers willing to provide their services to that person. The equality laws should only apply to employers and employees IMO, and who they choose to provide their services to should be their own business.

    So you would therefore agree in principal with the segregation laws which discriminated against anyone who was not 'white' of the southern United States that were eventually repealed?

    Many of those laws were claimed to be derived from the ruling elites 'religious' beliefs

    Nice world you want to live in ...:rolleyes:


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  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 18,184 ✭✭✭✭Lapin


    Its the unionists again, always the bloody unionists. :rolleyes:

    Yes those bloody unionists again.

    Those bloody people democratically elected by the majority to represent their interests actually doing their job.

    Bloody hell indeed. How dare they?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,905 ✭✭✭✭Bob24


    Daith wrote: »
    Except the bill in question came from the first example but would allow the second example to happen.

    That's my issue. It should be about the first issue.

    To be honest I am not very familiar with the details of the bill, but trying to Google it seems to me the press is not doing a great job at explaining it. I only find unbalanced articles (one way or the other) or some which try to be balanced but don't give any details of the bill itself and focus on the cake incident and subsequent polemics.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 663 ✭✭✭FairytaleGirl


    Bob24 wrote: »
    If a baker doesn't want to print a slogan promoting mixed race couples, I don't see why they should be forced to do so (I am part of a mixed couple myself).

    Of course if they were refusing to sell a cake to my partner and I because she is not white, I would have a big issue with this ... but that is a very different question.

    But that's the point - if this bill passes they WILL be able to do so.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,063 ✭✭✭Kiwi in IE



    There's no rule under company law that says any business has to provide it's services to a member of the public in a way which contravenes it's ethos. If a

    The only place where a religious ethos should be found is a church! Not a school, bakery, hospital, corner store, hair salon or supermarket. What if a chemist refused to sell condoms to two blokes because they knew or suspected that they are gay? Still OK? Go to another chemist? What if it's a small town and there is no other chemist? Don't have sex until you can get yourself to a non bigoted chemist? What if a wedding party were booked into a hair salon on the morning of the wedding and the hairdresser finds out that it's two women getting married and then refuses to do their hair? Too late to find another hairdresser. That OK too? Public acts of bigotry have no place in modern society. Because it was 'accepted' in the past does not make it OK now. Public hangings were accepted in the past too. Should we have remained 'traditional' on that one as well? If you cannot keep your bigotry based on religion or whatever other excuse you have to yourself, stay away from professions where you have to deal with the public!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 18,996 ✭✭✭✭gozunda


    md23040 wrote: »
    Scenario - You are related to Alan Hennings, the British aid worker recently beheaded and you own a bakery. A bunch of Muslims come into your bakery and ask for a cake with an ISIS flag on it with the slogan Death to the West. Are you obliged to make that cake or should the full force of the law be used to pursue you?

    Or someone goes into Finglas bakery asks for a Union Jack cake with some derogatory anti-Irish or anti Catholic slogans. Neither of these things might be illegal under the terms of the law.

    Lets get this into context - someone went out of their way to be offended and knew the consequences. The Bakery didn't refuse to make them a cake on the grounds of their sexual orientation and where happy to bake the cake but not supply the slogan. They should be fully within their rights to refuse to not include any slogan - same as the above examples, or forcing a Muslim cafe to make you a bacon buttie even if you provide the bacon.

    The law will not be enacted because it is impossible to police something so subjective that can not be measured, but equally it is ridiculous the equality commission and PC brigade taking action. As said the laws as ass and other bakeries could consider the business.

    What you have typified are requests for slogans that would fall under incitement to hatred laws AND therefore absolutely nothing to do with the cake shop in question being charged under NIs anti discrimination legislation.

    As for the daft "bacon buttie' x "Muslim cafe' - there is no case. The restaurant wouldn't have bacon on its menu. End of story.

    Now rather than get into some longwinded diatribe on this and other fictitious scenarios, I would suggest you read the last thread where such ridiculous arguments were firmly debunked. I can only presume you haven't read it. I suggest you do ...

    http://touch.boards.ie/thread/2057245070/1/#post91178444


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,775 ✭✭✭✭Gbear


    gozunda wrote: »
    So you would therefore agree in principal with the segregation laws many of the southern United States that were eventually repealed?

    Many of those laws were claimed to be derived from the ruling elites 'religious' beliefs

    Nice world you want to live in ...

    The racist laws in the US weren't laws that permitted a business to function as they wished but rather they enforced businesses to practice racial separation.

    You don't need to be a racist to oppose the state interfering in businesses right to choose their own clientèle. You just need to recognise that it ought not to be the state's business and having them sticking their oar in doesn't necessarily lead to a more equal or less racist society.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,361 ✭✭✭✭One eyed Jack


    gozunda wrote: »
    So you would therefore agree in principal with the segregation laws many of the southern United States that were eventually repealed?


    The segregation laws had a much greater impact on society than simply businesses discriminating who they would provide their services to. The segregation laws also applied to public services as well as private businesses. Discrimination in public services is an entirely different matter to discrimination by a private company.

    Many of those laws were claimed to be derived from the ruling elites 'religious' beliefs

    Nice world you want to live in ...


    I want to live in a world where people are not forced to do something which contravenes or compromises their religious, moral or ethical standards. Terrible, isn't it?

    It's not as if there are a shortage of service providers who don't give a damn as long as you have money because all they care about is their bottom line. You're right, that's not the kind of world I want to live in, and thankfully, we don't.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,905 ✭✭✭✭Bob24


    But that's the point - if this bill passes they WILL be able to do so.

    Would you have a link to a balanced analysis of the proposed bill and its consequences?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 18,504 ✭✭✭✭bucketybuck


    Lapin wrote: »
    Yes those bloody unionists again.

    Those bloody people democratically elected by the majority to represent their interests actually doing their job.

    Bloody hell indeed. How dare they?

    Doing their job! :pac:

    Thats it unionists, go get them gays!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,681 ✭✭✭bodice ripper


    It's conflating religion with conscience in law that I object to the most.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,689 ✭✭✭Karl Stein


    NI is fast becoming this island's equivalent of America's deep south.
    hfallada wrote: »
    How is that England is liberal and yet NI is so backwards.

    Not NI. There's a significant element within Unionism that was always 'Deep South'. You'll note the absence of the UUP and DUP below.
    Demonique wrote: »
    The crowd was addressed by politicians from Alliance, Sinn Féin and SDLP, as well as community leaders.
    hfallada wrote: »
    Imagine trying to have functioning Dail if there was a unification of the 32 counties. Instead of discussing important economic matters. I have a feeling, there would be a lot of debating over **** like this.

    Unionists who'd be opposed to living in the 21st Century would be very much a minority so I don't know how you're coming to that conclusion.


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,711 ✭✭✭keano_afc


    Your thread title is completely misleading and should be changed.

    I dont see any problem in theory with this bill. As has been said, Ashers refused the business because they didnt agree with the political campaign supported in the message. The sexuality of the "customer" who traveled 20 miles to be offended was never the issue.

    Its sets a dangerous precedent of we are forcing businesses to toe the line and support something they dont agree with because a noisy minority say so.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 18,996 ✭✭✭✭gozunda


    Gbear wrote: »
    The racist laws in the US weren't laws that permitted a business to function as they wished but rather they enforced businesses to practice racial separation.

    You don't need to be a racist to oppose the state interfering in businesses right to choose their own clientèle.You just need to recognise that it ought not to be the state's business and having them sticking their oar in doesn't necessarily lead to a more equal or less racist society.

    You don't need to be a racist to oppose the state interfering in businesses right to choose their own clientèle. But it sure as hell helps :rolleyes:

    Segregation laws not only enforced but also permitted discrimination. Hair splitting does not further your argument. Without the US government 'sticking their oar' into segregation and outlawing it, there would still be states with 'black people at the back of the bus"

    Here is some information on personal beliefs translated into active discrimination for you

    http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montgomery_Bus_Boycott


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,106 ✭✭✭Daith


    keano_afc wrote: »
    I dont see any problem in theory with this bill. As has been said, Ashers refused the business because they didnt agree with the political campaign supported in the message. The sexuality of the "customer" who traveled 20 miles to be offended was never the issue.

    I think you're getting mixed up.

    The bill would allow you not to serve a customer because of your religious beliefs. So you could refuse a customer because they were gay or black or a single mother.

    It actually has nothing to do with the slogan or message printing.

    I think the thread topic is fine but the original post should be less about Ashers and more about the actual bill.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 18,996 ✭✭✭✭gozunda


    keano_afc wrote: »
    Your thread title is completely misleading and should be changed.

    I dont see any problem in theory with this bill. As has been said, A Ashers refused the business because they didnt agree with the political campaign supported in the message.B The sexuality of the "customer" who traveled 20 miles to be offended was never the issue.

    C. Its sets a dangerous precedent of we are forcing businesses to toe the line and support something they dont agree with because a noisy minoritysay so.

    A That is YOUR interpretation and is unsupported by the evidence to date

    B Again that is your supposition on the issue and interestingly is at odds to what the NI anti discrimination authority has found and which looks likely to go before the courts

    C So as detailed previously would you hold that the civil rights movement in the US should have shut up and put up with discrimination?

    Nasty 'noisy' minorities actually speaking up and seeking the same rights as everyone else? Shame on them you say?' -shame on you!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,106 ✭✭✭Daith


    gozunda wrote: »
    Nasty minorities actually speaking up and seeking the same rights as everyone else? Shame on them' -shame on you!

    In fairness he said "noisy" minorities. Minorities should never speak up of course.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 18,996 ✭✭✭✭gozunda


    Daith wrote: »
    In fairness he said "noisy" minorities. Minorities should never speak up of course.

    Thank you - have fixed that. ;)


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 20 no_car


    hfallada wrote: »
    Imagine trying to have functioning Dail if there was a unification of the 32 counties. Instead of discussing important economic matters. I have a feeling, there would be a lot of debating over **** like this. Like the only reason why this law is being proposed as its clearly the views of a sizeable minority of NI.

    How is that England is liberal and yet NI is so backwards. They both have Church of Ireland/Catholics. But their social views are literally polar opposites.

    england is mainly anglican

    northern ireland ( if you exclude the catholic minority ) is predominantly presbyterian ( as is scotland )

    anglicanism is more liberal than catholicism but catholicism is more liberal than presbyterianism


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 20 no_car


    Daith wrote: »
    I never said that's what the owners said. No need to put words in my mouth or jump to conclusions.




    Hold on. The law they are talking about is a new law so you would be permitted to not to do business based on the sexuality of the customer. Not just slogans. That doesn't seem bad?

    no , i dont see why a private business should be obliged to carry out every customers request

    seem like state coercion

    as someone said earlier , if a customer went into a kosher bakery and requested a swastika emblemed cake , would the owner of the bakery be wrong to refuse ?, different shark but same principal id have thought


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,905 ✭✭✭✭Bob24


    gozunda wrote: »
    A That is YOUR interpretation and is unsupported by the evidence to date

    Well, that is also what the article linked in the original post says, and what the basis for the civil case was:

    "The Equality Commission has brought a civil case against Ashers Baking Company after it refused to bake a cake with a pro-gay marriage slogan."


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 20 no_car


    spiralism wrote: »
    The DUP in NI are by a distance the most far right party with any semblance of power in Europe, or anywhere i can think of from the top of my head for that matter. They'd make Nigel Farage cringe. Ideologically at the very least on a par with the likes of the BNP, Front National or PVV if not worse.

    the DUP are social conservatives with a capital C but they are not particulary right wing in an economic sense and they are not comparable to the national front in france of the BNP in the mainland uk

    they are a christian conservative party


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,394 ✭✭✭Sheldons Brain


    padd b1975 wrote: »
    Having someone express the view they don't agree with gay marriage is homophobia??

    Jesus Christ!!!
    That term is so diluted and misused now, it's almost meaningless.

    Not only that, but someone who doesn't agree with gay marriage is no doubt an ISIS supporter.
    no_car wrote:
    as someone said earlier , if a customer went into a kosher bakery and requested a swastika emblemed cake , would the owner of the bakery be wrong to refuse ?, different shark but same principal id have thought

    Of course this would be a principled stand by the baker, not the same thing at all at all :rolleyes:


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 20 no_car


    Would you have the same belief if it was towards mixed race couples? A white woman/black man?
    Because at the end of the day it's treating people as lesser because of something (their relationship) that's really no one else's business.

    i see what you did there

    on a list of pc sacred cows

    unmarried white couple come in around 8

    unmarried mixed race couple come in around 3


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,689 ✭✭✭Karl Stein


    no_car wrote: »
    seem like state coercion

    All laws are coercion. People are coerced to send their kids to school, insure their cars, drive carefully, pay taxes, keep the noise down in the evening and so and so on.

    Employment law coerces employers. Discrimination laws coerce haters.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,643 ✭✭✭RollieFingers


    Can we just get rid of Northern Ireland please? Kip of a spot with gob****es like this lot, stuck in the dark ages!


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  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 20 no_car


    Karl Stein wrote: »
    All laws are coercion. People are coerced to send their kids to school, insure their cars, drive carefully, pay taxes, keep the noise down in the evening and so and so on.

    Employment law coerces employers. Discrimination laws coerce haters.

    you see ive doubts about the supreme authority of the arbitators of what constitutes " haters "


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,063 ✭✭✭Kiwi in IE


    md23040 wrote: »
    come into your bakery and ask for a cake with an ISIS flag on it with the slogan Death to the West.
    md23040 wrote: »
    Or someone goes into Finglas bakery asks for a Union Jack cake with some derogatory anti-Irish or anti Catholic slogans.
    no_car wrote: »
    if a customer went into a kosher bakery and requested a swastika emblemed cake

    Yes because marriage equality and incitement of racial/ethnic hatred are the same thing of course! But there is no homophobia to be seen here!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 18,996 ✭✭✭✭gozunda


    The segregation laws had a much greater impact on society than simply businesses discriminating who they would provide their services to. The segregation laws also applied to public services as well as private businesses. Discrimination in public services is an entirely different matter to discrimination by a private company.

    Yet segregation laws DID include private businesses as with the present case of discrimination by sexual orientation by a private business in NI. And with the proposed legislation in NI - what happens when you get a bigoted individual working in a public service? Will they be able to claim a 'conscience' :rolleyes: exemption from serving a gay/coloured/gender specific person based on their 'religious belief'! Seriously?
    I want to live in a world where people are not forced to do something which contravenes or compromises their religious, moral or ethical standards. Terrible, isn't it?

    What you 'want' is immaterial. Your 'wants' do not trump another persons civil rights not to be discriminated against. Yes discrimination is 'terrible' and should never be condoned whether by religious belief or otherwise
    It's not as if there are a shortage of service providers who don't give a damn as long as you have money because all they care about is their bottom line. You're right, that's not the kind of world I want to live in, and thankfully, we don't.

    So you live in a small town in a rural area, that has for example one chemist / one bakery / one shop - what do you do? Travel in the hope of finding a non bigoted purveyor of goods and services. Businesses such as the Bakery at the centre of this debacle ARE in business for the bottom line (sic). They are there to make money as a business. If they are a business they are obliged to do so lawfully and not discriminate against customers.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 18,996 ✭✭✭✭gozunda


    no_car wrote: »
    no , i dont see why a private business should be obliged to carry out every customers request

    seem like state coercion

    as someone said earlier , if a customer went into a kosher bakery and requested a swastika emblemed cake , would the owner of the bakery be wrong to refuse ?, different shark but same principal id have thought

    As already explained above - not a comparable scenario. Such a request would fall under Incitment to Hatred, and not even remotely the 'same principal'


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 18,996 ✭✭✭✭gozunda


    Bob24 wrote: »
    Well, that is also what the article linked in the original post says, and what the basis for the civil case was:

    "The Equality Commission has brought a civil case against Ashers Baking Company after it refused to bake a cake with a pro-gay marriage slogan."

    The poster said
    keano afc wrote:
    Ashers refused the business because they didnt agree with the political campaign supported in the message.

    Leaving aside the fact I didn't refer to the article above - the two statements are NOT Synonymous. I would suggest you read the actual letter sent by the Equality Commission for the actual wording regarding the breach of legislation

    http://www.christian.org.uk/wp-content/downloads/ashers-letter-hq.jpg


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