Ashers Bakery Lose Same-Sex Cake Appeal

[Islay]

Common sense at last, they run a business if you bake a cake in Liverpool colours does not mean that you support Liverpool!

They were in the wrong and its about time the accepted it.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/live-updates-ashers-bakery-lose-samesex-cake-appeal-35154967.html

[andy-hughes]

TTT - // What we have here is the old metric martys game again. Some outfit with a bee in their bonnet deliberately go to an outlet that they know will object to what they want. Then they can act all horrified an in cases like this one, line pockets of the leeches whilst forcing the retailer to comply. Most of us would just go an find another cake shop. Both sides at fault really the only winners here are the lawyers as usual. //

For that argument to fly, the customers would have had to have known the religious views of the bakery owners - and I suggest that there is no evidence that they did.

Do you not think that if the prosecution was seen as simply malicious mischief making, that the court would have thrown it out, and possibly allowed a counter-action for defamation?

The customers are not 'forcing the retailers to comply ...' - the court is forcing them, because it is the law.

[Islay]

Tora so you know for a fact that he went to that bakers knowing they were Christian then?

[ToraToraTora]

andy: "For that argument to fly, the customers would have had to have known the religious views of the bakery owners " - come on of course they knew!

I don't know 100% Islay but I strongly suspect. Anyway if I go to a shop and they don't want to serve me I go to one that does. This is activists making a point.

[naomi24]

andy-hughes, // The customers are not 'forcing the retailers to comply ...' - the court is forcing them, because it is the law. //

The law deems that the retailers must abandon their principles - and that can't be right.

[murraymints]

oh for gawds sake it is a cake !!

[ToraToraTora]

I would not go to a kosher/Halal butchers and demand pork chops and then drag the whole thing through the courts just to make a point. That's what has happened here, obviously the protagonists have plenty of money and time on their hands.

[naomi24]

murraymints, it's not just a cake (ooooo ... I feel an advert coming on!) .... it's a principle.

[jno]

it's a cake that ended up in court, minty. But can you think of a way in which this might have been settled amicably and not gone to court, without anyone having to compromise their principles? I'm having trouble doing so.

[jno]

not quite what happened, TTT, the order was accepted but the bakers some days later changed their mind and refused. If they'd just said "Sorry, no can do" at the start this might have been avoided, though there may be any number of reasons why this didn't happen.

[ToraToraTora]

yes jno, the buyers should have respected the sellers position and gone to another cake shop. The Sellers should have refused to serve them and not offer a reason.

[murraymints]

Naomi it is a cake !! eat a doughnut instead ..some folk are too sensitive !!

[jno]

I seem to have answered your point before you posted it...

[naomi24]

Murraymints, //eat a doughnut instead //

Enough doughnuts involved already!

[murraymints]

quite.. a whole waste of time and money....bang their heids together !!!

[andy-hughes]

Naomi - //The law deems that the retailers must abandon their principles - and that can't be right. //

No it doesn't. The law deems that the retailers must obey the law.

The principles of the retailers are not taken into consideration in the application of the law - neither should they be.

As I have outlined previously there was and is ample opportunity - in law - for any retailer to avoid taking business they wish to reject. They could have refused the order and not given a reason - that is their legal right.

What is not their right is to take the order, think about it for a week, and then reject it for reasons which break the law. The origin of their reason is irrelevant.

[douglas9401]

'oh for gawds sake it is a cake !!'

or a meringue.

No, you're right, it's a cake.

[andy-hughes]

TTT - // would not go to a kosher/Halal butchers and demand pork chops and then drag the whole thing through the courts just to make a point. That's what has happened here, obviously the protagonists have plenty of money and time on their hands. //

That is not what has happened here.

Kosher and Halal butchers serve specific meat based on religious doctrine, and their business being advertised as a specialist butcher confirms that they will operate under that code. You cannot ask for something which you know in advance they do not sell, and then make a fuss.

If you ordered chops from a mainstream butcher, and he took your order, then rang you up a week later and refused to sell them because he is a kosher / halal butcher, then your comparison is edging to a parallel situation, but it is still way off the mark.

So the argument you bring is spurious.

So no, that is clearly not what happened here.

[andy-hughes]

TTT - //yes jno, the buyers should have respected the sellers position and gone to another cake shop. The Sellers should have refused to serve them and not offer a reason. //

If the second had happened first - which is what I advocated in the first place - the scenario would not have arisen.

It is not a matter of the buyers 'respecting the sellers' position' - the sellers' position broke the law - and does not deserve to be respected for that reason.

[murraymints]

douglas.yer no wrang !! DEFFO A CAKE ! LOL XX

[naomi24]

andy-hughes, //They could have refused the order and not given a reason - that is their legal right.//

And we’ve come full circle. The law doesn’t allow them to speak the truth.