Gay Cake Controversy!

astrofool wrote: »

While people seem to be getting tetchy, my point was that, based on the anti-discrimination laws, a printer can't refuse business but that there is a difference between a publisher and a printer, if I wrote a book with gay content, I can't force the church to publish it for me, I can however expect that any printing and manufacturing business wouldn't be able to discriminate against me and not print it if I pay the price to do so.

I don't think this is correct.

A printer, like a publisher, like any other business, can't discriminate against a customer on one of the prohibited grounds. If I turn away your business because you're gay, then I'm in breach of the equal treatment legislation; this is true whether I am a printer or a publisher or a shoemaker or anything else.

But what we have here is a case of the right to equal treatment running up agains the right to freedom of speech.

Can a publisher decline to publish a book by Donald Trump? Yes, absolutely. Can a printer decline to print the book? Yes, absolutely. The publisher and the printer both have a right to free speech which means they can't be compelled to produce, or join in the production of, statements that they don't wish to make. And in neither case is there an issue with the equal treatment legislation because there is nothing to suggest that Trump's business is being turned down because of his race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc.

Can a publisher decline to publish a book (a) supporting marriage equality, or (b) opposing marriage equality? Can a printer decline to print it? The publisher's argument will be that he doesn't care, and quite possibly doesn't know, about the sexual orientation, religion, etc of the author; his refusal to publish is based entirely on the contents of the book, with which he does not agree. The author, however, will argue that - whether or not the printer and publisher knew it - he is gay, or he is a fundamentalist Christian, and in the work he wrote is an expression of that identity, and the refusal to publish or print it impinges on him to such an extent as to amount to discrimination on the grounds of his sexual orientation/religious belief.

As we've already seen in this thread, in the Masterpiece Cakes case the US Supreme Court decided the case on other grounds, so this question remains open (which no doubt is why another attempt is being made to get the issue back to the Supreme Court). But in the UK, in Asher's Bakery, the Supreme Court confronted the issue and ruled that no-one can be forced to promote a belief or opinion they did not believe in or profoundly disagree with. I don't think there's anything in either the UK or US cases to support a publisher/printer distinction.

Again common sense has prevailed. We won't have the courts clogged up with compensation claims from people who went to a baker in Crossmaglen for a No Surrender To the IRA slogan. Or a Portadown baker who refused to put a Support a United Ireland slogan on a cake.

Now that same sex marriage is legal in the North, I would support the prosecution of any baker who refuses to supply a cake for a gay wedding. But the case was only ever about whether a trader could be forced to put a political message on a bespoke product.

They could have made the cake themselves at this stage.

Well, their reason for throwing it out was because he hadn't exhasted all avenues at State level, so there's that.

I don't see how he can win this - if he's been straight they'd have still said no. And they're well within their right to decline his custom as a private business.

100 of them.

I often wondered if he thought of going into a Muslim bakery with his request.

Wonder what the outcome would be then?

In relation to this particular incident, I think none.

But the ECHR has refused to take the case because they consider that the applicant didn't exhaust the remedies available to him in the UK courts. As a result, they haven't actually ruled on the issues the case raises. Which means that if similar circumstances occur again, another person can bring proceedings in the UK which raise the same issues, and those proceedings could go all the way to the ECHR.

We all thought when it was dismissed in the High Court that was the end of the matter and it wasn’t so who knows

An exaggerated folding of the arms and a massive sulk would be my guess.