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Which discrimination should trump which discrimination?

12346»

Comments

  • #252
    Peregrinus
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,683 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    TheChizler wrote: »
    I must try and find some of the original articles, at the time I was tearing my hair out with the frustration at one of their statements to a newspaper. Maybe they phrased it more like "we are defending our right to religious conscience" rather than "it was the message we we refused, not the person".
    Those are not inconsistent, though, are they?


  • #253
    TheChizler
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,474 ✭✭✭TheChizler


    Peregrinus wrote: »
    Those are not inconsistent, though, are they?
    Maybe it was the way it was phrased in the article, but it made it sound like they were defending the accusation of discrimination against him, rather than defending their right to refuse to print a message. I'm very possibly getting mixed up with one of the other gay cake/wedding invite cases over the years :o


  • #254
    Hotblack Desiato
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,476 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    Photo service withholds images of ‘gay cake’ bakery owners in protest

    In a statement on Thursday, Perfocal founder Tony Xu said one of the service’s photographers had been hired to take photographs of a couple outside the UK supreme court on Wednesday for a “business event”.

    The service subsequently discovered the couple in question was Daniel and Amy McArthur.

    “We later found out that the customer was [UK] charity and lobby group Christian Institute, paying all fees for the family that owned the bakery embroiled in a four-year-long legal case after taking a booking and then refusing to make a cake with the slogan ‘Support Gay Marriage’.

    “It’s been accepted in the highest court in the UK that private companies can accept bookings and then, if they feel that it goes against their morals, refuse that booking . . . and it not be counted as discriminatory.

    “As such, I have made the decision to refuse to hand over the photographs.

    “We appreciate that this looks like tit for tat, and it is. We are proud to have been booked for many religious ceremonies, including Christian, Jewish and Muslim celebrations. We’ve also been booked often for same-sex weddings.

    “In short, we welcome customers from all backgrounds.”

    hah!!!

    Scrap the cap!



  • #255
    recedite
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,992 ✭✭✭✭recedite


    I hope our stance serves as an example of exactly where this kind of judgement could lead us. Where does it end?”
    It could end with the "photo service" being taken to court for religious discrimination; ie refusing service to Christians :pac:
    A very foolish publicity stunt, given the knife edge that these issues hang on, and the huge legal fees involved.


  • #256
    recedite
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,992 ✭✭✭✭recedite


    What Ashers bakery did; refused service to a guy who never claimed to be gay, because they felt they should not be compelled to get involved in his political campaign (which was for something currently illegal).


    What the photo service did; refused service to openly and notoriously Christian lawyers, because the photographers felt they should not be compelled to get involved with Christians receiving justice before the law. So the objection is to the law and to Christians upholding their values.



    They have also said that they photographed other Christians (at weddings) as if this was a defence, but its not. Being nice to one member of the protected class of persons does not entitle you to discriminate against another person later. Its not supposed to be a quota system.


  • #257
    Peregrinus
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,683 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    From a legal point of view there may be a more significant difference.

    Ashers rejected the order early on and returned the money in sufficient time for Mr Lee to place the order with another baker; he got the cake he wanted to bring to the party. So they didn’t prevent him from accessing the service he wanted; they just didn’t supply it themselves.

    Whereas the photo agency accepted the booking, took the money, turned up to the event and took the photographs. It was only after the event was over that they decided not to hand over the photographs. Presumably, they will refund the money, but there is no possibility of the customers getting the same service elsewhere. The photo agency has prevented that by not rejecting the order until after the event.

    Of course, this is because the photo agency didn’t know, until the day, what the event was and who their customer was. But that immediately takes them outside the precedent set by the Asher’s case. The photographers had no objection to the service they were asked to provide, and in fact went to far as to turn up to the event and take the photographs. Their objection was to the customer - its identity, its reason for wanting the photographs, and the use they suspected it would make of the photographs. The photo agency would almost certainly have taken and delivered the exact same photographs of the exact same event if their customer had been Mr Lee or the Equality Commission. Whereas Ashers won on the basis that they would not have baked that particular cake for anybody.

    The other significant difference is that Ashers, to fulfill the order, would have been required to express support for gay marriage. I don’t think there’s anything analogous in what the photo agency was asked to do. The court didn’t hold that Ashers were free to reject an order “if they feel that it goes against their morals”; only that they were free to reject an order if requiring them to fulfill it would have contravened their rights of freedom of thought, conscience and religion, and freedom of expression. The photo agency will need to make the case that handing over the photographs will contravene their rights of freedom of thought, conscience and religion, and freedom of expression. While handing over a photograph is, arguably, a form of expression, the photographs themselves do not contain any “support/oppose gay marriage” message, so they are not analogous to the cake.

    Still, I have the faintest suspicion that the Christian Institute is not going to press this issue. Right now, they have a significant legal victory. It may not be to their advantage, legally or in PR terms, to have these questions further litigated.


  • #258
    Hotblack Desiato
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,476 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    Peregrinus wrote: »
    Presumably, they will refund the money, but there is no possibility of the customers getting the same service elsewhere. The photo agency has prevented that by not rejecting the order until after the event.

    Fair point.
    The other significant difference is that Ashers, to fulfill the order, would have been required to express support for gay marriage.

    Ah come off it. The printing company doing political posters is not expressing support for the candidate. It's just business.

    Scrap the cap!



  • #259
    recedite
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,992 ✭✭✭✭recedite


    Hotblack Desiato wrote: »
    Ah come off it. The printing company doing political posters is not expressing support for the candidate. It's just business.
    For some companies that is the case, especially for big ones, and multinationals. But for small family businesses that are firmly embedded in their local community, it is a different story, they may be run according to family values. And in this case, the clue is literally in the name. The point is, they cannot be compelled to participate, if they don't want to.
    I posed the question earlier in this thread which has been answered now by the UK's SC (thanks for that :pac: )
    Equality cuts both ways. Too many "progressives" think equality legislation is there to force everybody else to step into line behind them. But this case proves that it can also be used to protect people who choose not to follow the prevailing groupthink.
    Its the quid pro quo of equality. So just like women can no longer expect men to open doors for them, or stand up and give them a seat on the Luas, gays and/or minorities of any kind cannot expect everyone else to automatically help with their campaigns.


  • #260
    Peregrinus
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,683 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    Hotblack Desiato wrote: »
    Ah come off it. The printing company doing political posters is not expressing support for the candidate. It's just business.
    It's obviously not "just business" for the printing company that rejects the order from the campaign they don't support. If it were just business for them, they'd take the order.


  • #261
    Rhineshark
    Registered Users Posts: 632 ✭✭✭Rhineshark


    recedite wrote: »
    Its the quid pro quo of equality. So just like women can no longer expect men to open doors for them, or stand up and give them a seat on the Luas, gays and/or minorities of any kind cannot expect everyone else to automatically help with their campaigns.

    I don't think minorities ever did. That lead to this whole civil rights thing so that they don't have to rely on majority support just to be able to get on with their own lives.

    They should be able to expect the same service as other customers though.

    As a matter of interest and does anyone know if an atheist cakemaker shoukd be able to refuse a Catholic booking? Atheism is specifically not a religion so are atheists protected from scary messages in the same way that Catholics are?


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  • #262
    Peregrinus
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,683 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    Rhineshark wrote: »
    I don't think minorities ever did. That lead to this whole civil rights thing so that they don't have to rely on majority support just to be able to get on with their own lives.

    They should be able to expect the same service as other customers though.

    As a matter of interest and does anyone know if an atheist cakemaker shoukd be able to refuse a Catholic booking? Atheism is specifically not a religion so are atheists protected from scary messages in the same way that Catholics are?
    The judgment in this case didn't turn on religion. As it happens, the McArthurs offered religious motivations for their convictions about the undesirability of same-sex marriage, but that wasn't really relevant. They won on the right to free speech; you can't be compelled to say something you don't agree with. Your reasons for not agreeing with it are irrelevant.

    It follows that the atheist baker would win on the free speech ground; he can't be compelled to say something he doesn't agree with.

    For what it's worth, if you fight the case on the freedom of religion ground, the atheist baker would have as strong a case as the Christian baker. "Freedom of religion" includes the right not to profess any religion.


  • #263
    mickydcork
    Closed Accounts Posts: 210 ✭✭mickydcork


    Sensible outcome.

    As I've said before though,let's all just use the non-bigoted bakery up the road now!

    There should probably not be a legal consequence to behaving like this but I'd sure hope there is a social/market consequence!


  • #264
    Nick Park
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,573 ✭✭✭Nick Park


    mickydcork wrote: »
    Sensible outcome.

    As I've said before though,let's all just use the non-bigoted bakery up the road now!

    There should probably not be a legal consequence to behaving like this but I'd sure hope there is a social/market consequence!

    There has been a significant social/market consequence, with a dramatic change in Asher's financial position: https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/business/news/bakery-at-centre-of-samesex-cake-row-ashers-sees-profits-top-15m-35689245.html


  • #265
    mickydcork
    Closed Accounts Posts: 210 ✭✭mickydcork


    Nick Park wrote: »
    There has been a significant social/market consequence, with a dramatic change in Asher's financial position: https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/business/news/bakery-at-centre-of-samesex-cake-row-ashers-sees-profits-top-15m-35689245.html

    Oh FFS!


  • #266
    Hotblack Desiato
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,476 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    Rather a bit of spin there, their accumulated profit increased by £200k so that was their profit for the year, but the story makes it look like the annual profit was £1.5m

    Meanwhile, all is not rosy in the garden

    https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/bakery-at-centre-of-gay-cake-case-closes-belfast-city-centre-outlet-1.3669174

    Scrap the cap!



  • #267
    Peregrinus
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,683 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    Hotblack Desiato wrote: »
    Rather a bit of spin there, their accumulated profit increased by £200k so that was their profit for the year, but the story makes it look like the annual profit was £1.5m
    This.

    Without knowing how much accumulated profit rose by in the previous year, it's impossible to say if the profitability of the business is rising or falling.

    You'd also want to look at profitability not in absolute terms, but as a percentage of turnover. Is that rising or falling? Not enough information in the article to say.


  • #268
    recedite
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,992 ✭✭✭✭recedite


    Accumulated profit normally accumulates on a monthly basis until the end of the year, when a final figure is announced. If they are not giving any other timespan, then one year would be the default assumption.
    Anyway, it was clearly stated to be £1.3M one year and £1.5M the following year, which is an increase in profitability no matter what way you look at it.


    The city centre fire would have affected all businesses nearby, which is actually stated in the article. The other branches of the bakery are obviously booming.


  • #269
    Peregrinus
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,683 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    recedite wrote: »
    Accumulated profit normally accumulates on a monthly basis until the end of the year, when a final figure is announced. If they are not giving any other timespan, then one year would be the default assumption.
    Anyway, it was clearly stated to be £1.3M one year and £1.5M the following year, which is an increase in profitability no matter what way you look at it.
    OK. Bit of hotshot forensic accounting coming up.

    First off: check out the date on the Belfast Telegraph story: 8 May 2017. So we're not talking about the company's recent financial performance here.

    Secondly, unless there's a mole in the bakery (and what would Food Standards have to say about that?) the story is going to be based on publicly available information. So if we look at the Ashers' filings at Companies House, and look for the accounts last filed before 8 May 2017, odds are that's where the information is coming from.

    And those accounts turn out to be the accounts for the period 1 April 2015 to 31 March 2016. Here they are.

    As a small company, Ashers only has to file abbreviated accounts. So there is no Profit and Loss Account. Ashers profit for the year is nowhere stated.

    All there is is a balance sheet, which shows an increase in shareholders funds (made up virtually entirely of retained profits) from 1.38 million (as at 31 March 2015) to 1.55 million (as at 31 March 2016). Almost certainly this is the source of the "growth from 1.3 million to 1.5 million" story in the Telegraph.

    All this tells us is that the company retained profits of (1.55 - 1.38 =) 170k in 2015/16. We don't know if that is there total profit for the year; they may have made larger profits but distributed some to shareholders. We also don't know if that's more or less than the corresponding figure for 2015/14.

    We can find that out by digging up the 2014/15 accounts, but what's the point? Even if we say that retained profits were greater in 2015/6 than in 2014/5, we wouldn't know why. It wouldn't necessarily mean that the underlying business was more profitable; it could equally be that the company had retained more of its profits, and distributed less (which would not make the owners of the company feel any more prosperous). Or that the directors pay and remuneration had been cut, thus reducing expenditure and boosting profits.

    So, basically, we know nothing of any significance, except that the effect of the publicity surrounding the case had not been to render the company insolvent by 31 March 2016.


  • #270
    recedite
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,992 ✭✭✭✭recedite


    The link above does not work BTW. I agree there is no point digging any further unless you are a mole (and there are no moles in Ireland).
    The principle of Occam's Razor, however, would suggest that if a company is able to accumulate and retain more profits than in the previous year, then it is doing well.


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  • #271
    Hotblack Desiato
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,476 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    Well, if you even bothered to read the post you replied to, it doesn't appear you understood it.

    Scrap the cap!



  • #272
    smacl
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 15,777 Mod ✭✭✭✭smacl


    Hotblack Desiato wrote: »
    Well, if you even bothered to read the post you replied to, it doesn't appear you understood it.

    +1. Retained profit isn't net profit. If I make a decent profit in any given year that doesn't need to be in the company I'll chuck it into my pension fund or take it out as a dividend. If however I think I'll need the money, e.g. to take on more staff or buy new equipment I'll leave it in the company. Similarly, if I'm thinking of selling the company, I leave the money in the company to make it appear cash rich. A two year old abbreviated balance sheet for a small company doesn't tell you that much, and you'd do well to get anything more recent.


  • #273
    Peregrinus
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,683 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    recedite wrote: »
    The link above does not work BTW. I agree there is no point digging any further unless you are a mole (and there are no moles in Ireland).
    The principle of Occam's Razor, however, would suggest that if a company is able to accumulate and retain more profits than in the previous year, then it is doing well.
    We don't know that it accumulated and retained more profit than in the previous year. We know how much profit it retained in 2015/6 (about 170k) but not how much it retained in 2014/5.

    And, as already pointed out by me and others, even if we did know that, and the 2015/6 figure was larger, that wouldn't tell us that the business was more profitable than in the previous year. Just that it was, for whatever reason, retaining more profits, which is a very different thing.


  • #274
    recedite
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,992 ✭✭✭✭recedite


    Peregrinus wrote: »
    We don't know that it accumulated and retained more profit than in the previous year. We know how much profit it retained in 2015/6 (about 170k) but not how much it retained in 2014/5.

    And, as already pointed out by me and others, even if we did know that, and the 2015/6 figure was larger, that wouldn't tell us that the business was more profitable than in the previous year. Just that it was, for whatever reason, retaining more profits, which is a very different thing.
    Yes, you are correct. And yes, there is a tiny chance that the business is not doing well, despite accumulating even more profit. It could be that the whole family have been living on baked beans for the year, just so they could show people that the family business has even more money in the bank than it had last year. There is always that tiny chance.
    Hang onto it, my friend :)


  • #275
    Peregrinus
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,683 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    Stop digging, Rec.

    What we know about this business is that it retained profits of 170k in 2015/6. Is that "doing well"? We've no idea. We don't know what the gross profits in 2015/6 were, or the net profits. We don't know what the return on investment was. Is it higher than the Macarthurs would get by putting their cash in the post office? Lower? Search me. We don't know what the turnover is, so we don't know what the profit margin is. 2%? 15%? We've no idea We don't even know whether retained profits are rising or falling from year to year. For all we know, 170k in retained profits could represent a steep decline.

    Generally, when you don't know something, it's best to acknowledge that you don't know it. (I really shouldn't have to point that out on a forum dedicated to atheism and agnosticism :D.)


  • #276
    Hotblack Desiato
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,476 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    Is the business actually a limited company? If so, it's ridiculous that they can get away with returning such sketchy information.

    The purpose of a companies register and publishing accounts is supposed to be so would-be creditors can assess whether they're likely to be paid. If you can't really tell whether a business is making money or not, they might as well not bother publishing accounts at all.

    Scrap the cap!



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  • #277
    Peregrinus
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,683 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    Hotblack Desiato wrote: »
    Is the business actually a limited company? If so, it's ridiculous that they can get away with returning such sketchy information.

    The purpose of a companies register and publishing accounts is supposed to be so would-be creditors can assess whether they're likely to be paid. If you can't really tell whether a business is making money or not, they might as well not bother publishing accounts at all.
    Yes, it's a limited company.

    The point of disclosing accounts is so that those considering dealing with the company will know if there are assets against which they could enforce a judgment, and what other liabilities the company has that might also have to be satisfied out of the same assets. For that purpose profitability is irrelevant; the balance sheet is what matters. Hence that's what you have to disclose.

    If you're considering lending to the company you're concerned about the company's ability to service the loan, and you want to know about cash-flow and profitability and suchlike. But a loan is something that arises by agreement. So for that you don't need to have full accounts lodged in public at the Companies Registration Office; you just ask the company to show you its full audited accounts, and it does, because it wants the loan.


  • #278
    smacl
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 15,777 Mod ✭✭✭✭smacl


    Hotblack Desiato wrote: »
    The purpose of a companies register and publishing accounts is supposed to be so would-be creditors can assess whether they're likely to be paid. If you can't really tell whether a business is making money or not, they might as well not bother publishing accounts at all.

    If you're going to do credit check on a company, you'd be looking at a lot more than the abbreviated balance sheet. e.g. list of directors, actions against the company, other directorships held by the directors, actions against those companies etc.. You would also typically ask the company for other current financial references prior to extending them credit. Many small company overdrafts for example require a joint and several guarantee from all the directors.

    Retained profits can also be counter-intuitive as they will often be significantly down after a period of growth, where retained money has been expended by investing in new salaries.


  • #279
    Hotblack Desiato
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,476 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    Peregrinus wrote: »
    If you're considering lending to the company you're concerned about the company's ability to service the loan, and you want to know about cash-flow and profitability and suchlike.

    Every supplier is a lender, up until they get paid.

    Nobody wants to have to go down the court route.

    Scrap the cap!



  • #280
    smacl
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 15,777 Mod ✭✭✭✭smacl


    Hotblack Desiato wrote: »
    Every supplier is a lender, up until they get paid.

    Nobody wants to have to go down the court route.

    Bad debts tend to be a common part of small business in this country, and I'd guess every small business that has survived one or more recessions has dealt with this. Keeping retained earnings in the company is also a way of being able to copy with this, along with simply not offering credit to clients you don't like the look of.


  • #281
    Peregrinus
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,683 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    Hotblack Desiato wrote: »
    Every supplier is a lender, up until they get paid.

    Nobody wants to have to go down the court route.
    Nobody wants to have to, but the point of disclosing the balance sheet is so that you'll have relevant information about what the state of affairs might be if you do have to.

    The basic deal with limited liablity is: Persons dealing with the business can only enforce their claims against the assets of the business, and not against the assets of the owners of the business (the shareholders). In return for which, persons dealing with the business are entitled to know what the assets of the business are. Hence, the balance sheet.

    Obviously persons dealing with the business might be interested to know more about the business - turnover, profit margins, how much the directors are paying themselves, etc. But it's not clear that they have a right to know these things, or that their interest outweighs the interest of the business owners in being able to tell them to mind their own business. So the deal here is that you can ask for more information, and you can make getting more information a conditions of dealing with the compay. It's standard practice to ask for more information and to get it, if you are making a significant loan to the company, or an investment in it, or entering into a partnership or joint venture with it. But it's not standard practice to ask for or get that information if you're simply extending short term credit by way of selling them goods on 30-day payment terms.


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