Wednesday 20 May 2015

Gay Cake Debacle


A bakery in Northern Ireland has been found guilty of discrimination by refusing to make a cake with a pro gay marriage slogan.

I do think things are getting out of hand with this anti-discrimination law.

What if you were a baker with a predominantly Catholic clientele who was asked to bake a cake celebrating the Battle of the Boyne. Could you argue that making such a cake could affect your business - possibly leading to your business going bust as a consequence?

What if you are a gay baker asked to make a cake with the slogan; "No to Gay Marriage"?

Of if you were say Jewish and asked to make a cake emblazoned with the Nazi flag? Wouldn't you be justified in refusing?


It's not as if the buyer didn't have the choice to go somewhere else. Makes you wonder if the bakery in question was specifically targeted just to make a point.

There's also the matter of the use of images of Bert and Ernie - copyright infringement?

What cake would you refuse to bake? A Creationist cake would feature high on the list for me.


6 comments:

Alan Burnett said...

If you have behavioural laws you are always going to get people who delight in searching for the boundaries and attempting to make mockeries of them. But if you don't have behavioural laws you will have behaviour which can eat deep into the soul of society. And then it is one small step before you get folk from "over tops" refusing to make Yorkshire puddings.

A Heron's View said...

I think you have misunderstood.
The bakery entered into a contract when it accepted the order and took the clients money. If they had a problem then they ought not to have accepted the order.

Steve Borthwick said...

I don't think trivialising important equality issues like this helps anyone; exposure, publicity and mockery are fine, but legal proceedings? Not when the consumer has reasonable choice of other suppliers within a sensible time-frame.

Mind you, if I had to bake a "creationist cake" I'd make it a "rock cake" and be sure to place a fossil or two in the middle of it (for authenticity)..

Chairman Bill said...

Gay Yorkshires - the mind boggles...

Chairman Bill said...

So we have entered into contract law too.

Interestingly, in Japan you can get out of a contract if it is found to be disadvantageous to one party. A contract has to be mutually beneficial.

Chairman Bill said...

But God put the fossils there!