You do have a choice on whether you want to pursue the gay lifestyle.
See in one way you're actually correct. I could choose to frequent gay bars and various gay-friendly establishments. I could read gay literature. I could go to gay church (the gym .. ) and I could make some gay friends.
I think if I did all that then you probably could fairly accurately say I was following the "gay lifestyle".
One thing I could not choose is who I am attracted to and who I want to have special cuddles with.
Probably because I live in the 21st century and am not an intolerant tosser ...
also, the imagery of bert and ernie is most likely covered by copyright.
thus, unless the baker or the buyer has the permission to use the bert and ernie imagery then it should be refused on copyright grounds.
I would think using copyrighted images or whatever would be illegal if the person wanting it intended to make money from it. The person wanting the images done only wanted them to be put on a cake. I bet there's been loads of images been put on cakes in the past that have come from TV if we're going down that route.
'"It certainly was at odds with what the Bible teaches, and on the following Monday we rang the customer to let him know that we couldn't take his order."'
You know someone has lost all sense of reason and logic when they use the term "gay lifestyle". Mainly because a gay lifestyle is a delusion conjured up by the bigoted and deeply ignorant to bolster their unwavering belief that gays are doing something bad and straights are superior in every single way. Including choice of cake (apparently).
was the buyer discriminated due to their sexuality?
no i don't think so.
if a straight person went in and asked for the same message on a cake then they would also be refused.
no discrimination has taken place.
No direct discrimination against an individual has taken place - however the law is clear that you cannot put rules or arrangements in place that apply to everyone but put someone with a protected characteristic at an unfair disadvantage. I think this indirect discrimination is what the Equality Commission is arguing. I am not sure of the law in NI however, so perhaps (as I said earlier) this needs to be tested in a court.
Not very good Christians either because I've heard of them refusing to make first communion cakes too. As always in NI, it's about being a certain type of Christian...
also, the imagery of bert and ernie is most likely covered by copyright.
thus, unless the baker or the buyer has the permission to use the bert and ernie imagery then it should be refused on copyright grounds.
Trademarked, not copyrighted. Technically, those characters aren't registered trademarks. They are two associated characters that are part of the Sesame Street brand, which is copyrighted and trademarked under most IP categories. But we're talking the Food and Beverages category here, which makes a bit complicated.
In most cases, Sesame Workshop - like other holders - tend to turn a blind eye to private individuals' acts of infringement for personal use, like cake decorations. Only as long as it's not used to make a profit or enforce a negative act that could affect the Sesame Street brand. As in, you can't use it to promote hatred, bigotry or whatnot.
Getting a service provider - a cake shop in this case - to use an unlicensed edible image on a private individual's cake is a grey area. Sesame Workshop can and sometimes do turn a blind eye, but most times, they insist on licensed edible images. So if it's a customer that supplies an unlicensed edible image, it's right for a service provider to refuse.
Still doesn't mean the shop can renege on the order, though. The shop can request the customer to replace it with a licensed edible image, or offer a choice from their own collection of licensed edible images.
However, if I read the article right, the image is already licensed as it seems part of the shop's services. So the point is moot.
In any case, the shop shouldn't have reneged a few days after accepting the order for any other reason than the ones already applicable to all orders.
If you are running a business and advertising as such there can be no discrimination on whatever grounds. If you are selling to the general public there can be no 'pick and mix' as those goods and services are being offered on the principle of being sold on the open market.
If all businesses started a discrimination policy, we would be back to the 'no blacks' and 'no Irish' signs being displayed. Do we really want to regress back to open intolerance and discrimination.
The Christian baker isn't being discriminated against either. They broke the law and discriminated themselves. The law is equal for all businesses, I would say exactly the same if an anti gay group wanted flyers printed at a business being run by a gay person.
I don't think its very straightforward. Its not like the bakers said "we're not going to serve you because you're gay" but rather they didn't like the message - apparently they have refused other messages in the past. Also same sex marriage is not legal in Northern Ireland anyway.
I do wonder if QueerSpace has been getting cakes made by all Belfast bakers or did they specifically pick on Ashers as they are Christian - discrimination by them too?;-)
I doubt this is the case in all honesty. The bakery is the most central one in Belfast and is a well know chain (in terms of having quite a few shops, not for being Christian) It's also only 5 minutes away from the main offices for all the LGBT advocacy groups in the city, so it would make sense to call round there.
You know someone has lost all sense of reason and logic when they use the term "gay lifestyle". Mainly because a gay lifestyle is a delusion conjured up by the bigoted and deeply ignorant to bolster their unwavering belief that gays are doing something bad and straights are superior in every single way. Including choice of cake (apparently).
It's all that love the sinner hate the sin crap.
Which of course all falls apart because this particular "sin" is one you have to go into Deuteronomy and Leviticus to find. It's not even one of the Ten Commandants FFS.
And they don't even go all in on people who break those! Where's the uproar about people working on the sabbath for example?
Apologies if it's been mentioned as I haven't read every post but, why the hell would anyone want a wedding cake with 'Support Gay Marriage' written on it. Surely Congratulations whatever your names are would be more appropriate than some kind of political statement.
I see that the guy is also a gay rights activist who out of all the places he could have chosen to have the cake made he deliberately chose a Christian bakery. The guy sounds like a total knobhead if you ask me. This was clearly all set up to get the bakery owners in trouble and make the local papers.
If you are running a business and advertising as such there can be no discrimination on whatever grounds. If you are selling to the general public there can be no 'pick and mix' as those goods and services are being offered on the principle of being sold on the open market.
That probably means it's open season on newspapers and TV channels then. They often decline to post certain messages. It's certainly a tricky situation and it'll be interesting to see how it turns out. I don't like censorship but by that I mean government censorship which I don't feel applies here. All I see is a private business owner choosing to stick to their own personal editorial policy.
They did not refuse to bake a cake, they refused to agree to put the inscription on the cake as they don't support gay marriage. They did not refuse to serve a gay man, they refused to endorse a political statement that they do not believe in.
The bakery is well known in the area as run by a christian family - I sense something of a set-up about this. Refusing to do the inscription has provided the customer with the response he was after in my opinion. For £2 you can get a tube of piping cream at tesco and he could have done the writing on the cake himself if it is that important to him.
Apologies if it's been mentioned as I haven't read every post but, why the hell would anyone want a wedding cake with 'Support Gay Marriage' written on it. Surely Congratulations whatever your names are would be more appropriate than some kind of political statement.
I see that the guy is also a gay rights activist who out of all the places he could have chosen to have the cake made he deliberately chose a Christian bakery. The guy sounds like a total knobhead if you ask me. This was clearly all set up to get the bakery owners in trouble and make the local papers.
Are you sure? Would he have known the bakery was owned by Christians?
Apologies if it's been mentioned as I haven't read every post but, why the hell would anyone want a wedding cake with 'Support Gay Marriage' written on it. Surely Congratulations whatever your names are would be more appropriate than some kind of political statement.
I see that the guy is also a gay rights activist who out of all the places he could have chosen to have the cake made he deliberately chose a Christian bakery. The guy sounds like a total knobhead if you ask me. This was clearly all set up to get the bakery owners in trouble and make the local papers.
It wasn't a wedding cake I don't think - just a cake for an LGBT advocacy group (Same sex marriage isn't yet legal in NI, so they were probably having a campaign 'do' and the cake formed part of that).
I don't know if they targetted the bakery... as another poster has said, the bakery is close by and a well known group, so it could be simply that it was convenient.
It does not matter if it was 'set up' or not. The fact remains they discriminated and broke the law. The easiest way the bakery could have got around this (although someone on here would need to confirm the legality) would be to advise the customer that the wording would be done by a third party. The bakery could then have taken the order and asked someone else who had no problem with gay people to place the wording on the cake.
Cake is still made to order, job done.
Are you sure? Would he have known the bakery was owned by Christians?
Oh come on. This has 'set-up' written all over it (as it were:D).
As FMKK noted upthread, the bakery is known for not making First Communion cakes.
Of course the fact that it is almost certainly a set-up does not invalidate the guy's attempt to get the bakery's decision tested in court but let's not pretend that this is some innocent purchaser who had no idea what would happen.
Are there any such people, or did you just invent them?
This type: "an activist from the QueerSpace pressure group approached the Belfast bakery chain and ordered a cake decorated with the words ‘support gay marriage’."
The type who deliberately set out to provoke a confrontation and then shout foul. The message he wanted was clearly intended to be controversial. A genuine message on a cake would have been 'congratulations on your wedding' or something like that.
The guy sounds like a total knobhead if you ask me. This was clearly all set up to get the bakery owners in trouble and make the local papers.
That was my (fairly self-evident) take on the situation too. Gay marriage is on the books, and it really isn't necessary to go out of your way to antagonise people who, for one reason or another, aren't totally down with it.
Comments
That's why I had the second sentence in my post (the one you didn't quote).
See in one way you're actually correct. I could choose to frequent gay bars and various gay-friendly establishments. I could read gay literature. I could go to gay church (the gym ..
I think if I did all that then you probably could fairly accurately say I was following the "gay lifestyle".
One thing I could not choose is who I am attracted to and who I want to have special cuddles with.
Probably because I live in the 21st century and am not an intolerant tosser ...
So pathetic. All i can do is laugh.
I would think using copyrighted images or whatever would be illegal if the person wanting it intended to make money from it. The person wanting the images done only wanted them to be put on a cake. I bet there's been loads of images been put on cakes in the past that have come from TV if we're going down that route.
Old or new testament I wonder?
No direct discrimination against an individual has taken place - however the law is clear that you cannot put rules or arrangements in place that apply to everyone but put someone with a protected characteristic at an unfair disadvantage. I think this indirect discrimination is what the Equality Commission is arguing. I am not sure of the law in NI however, so perhaps (as I said earlier) this needs to be tested in a court.
Not very good Christians either because I've heard of them refusing to make first communion cakes too. As always in NI, it's about being a certain type of Christian...
Trademarked, not copyrighted. Technically, those characters aren't registered trademarks. They are two associated characters that are part of the Sesame Street brand, which is copyrighted and trademarked under most IP categories. But we're talking the Food and Beverages category here, which makes a bit complicated.
In most cases, Sesame Workshop - like other holders - tend to turn a blind eye to private individuals' acts of infringement for personal use, like cake decorations. Only as long as it's not used to make a profit or enforce a negative act that could affect the Sesame Street brand. As in, you can't use it to promote hatred, bigotry or whatnot.
Getting a service provider - a cake shop in this case - to use an unlicensed edible image on a private individual's cake is a grey area. Sesame Workshop can and sometimes do turn a blind eye, but most times, they insist on licensed edible images. So if it's a customer that supplies an unlicensed edible image, it's right for a service provider to refuse.
Still doesn't mean the shop can renege on the order, though. The shop can request the customer to replace it with a licensed edible image, or offer a choice from their own collection of licensed edible images.
However, if I read the article right, the image is already licensed as it seems part of the shop's services. So the point is moot.
In any case, the shop shouldn't have reneged a few days after accepting the order for any other reason than the ones already applicable to all orders.
If all businesses started a discrimination policy, we would be back to the 'no blacks' and 'no Irish' signs being displayed. Do we really want to regress back to open intolerance and discrimination.
The Christian baker isn't being discriminated against either. They broke the law and discriminated themselves. The law is equal for all businesses, I would say exactly the same if an anti gay group wanted flyers printed at a business being run by a gay person.
I doubt this is the case in all honesty. The bakery is the most central one in Belfast and is a well know chain (in terms of having quite a few shops, not for being Christian) It's also only 5 minutes away from the main offices for all the LGBT advocacy groups in the city, so it would make sense to call round there.
It's all that love the sinner hate the sin crap.
Which of course all falls apart because this particular "sin" is one you have to go into Deuteronomy and Leviticus to find. It's not even one of the Ten Commandants FFS.
And they don't even go all in on people who break those! Where's the uproar about people working on the sabbath for example?
I see that the guy is also a gay rights activist who out of all the places he could have chosen to have the cake made he deliberately chose a Christian bakery. The guy sounds like a total knobhead if you ask me. This was clearly all set up to get the bakery owners in trouble and make the local papers.
The bakery is well known in the area as run by a christian family - I sense something of a set-up about this. Refusing to do the inscription has provided the customer with the response he was after in my opinion. For £2 you can get a tube of piping cream at tesco and he could have done the writing on the cake himself if it is that important to him.
Are you sure? Would he have known the bakery was owned by Christians?
It wasn't a wedding cake I don't think - just a cake for an LGBT advocacy group (Same sex marriage isn't yet legal in NI, so they were probably having a campaign 'do' and the cake formed part of that).
I don't know if they targetted the bakery... as another poster has said, the bakery is close by and a well known group, so it could be simply that it was convenient.
Cake is still made to order, job done.
Oh come on. This has 'set-up' written all over it (as it were:D).
As FMKK noted upthread, the bakery is known for not making First Communion cakes.
Of course the fact that it is almost certainly a set-up does not invalidate the guy's attempt to get the bakery's decision tested in court but let's not pretend that this is some innocent purchaser who had no idea what would happen.
Nope.
Please explain what a "gay lifestyle" is, and how one should stop "pursuing" it.
This type: "an activist from the QueerSpace pressure group approached the Belfast bakery chain and ordered a cake decorated with the words ‘support gay marriage’."
The type who deliberately set out to provoke a confrontation and then shout foul. The message he wanted was clearly intended to be controversial. A genuine message on a cake would have been 'congratulations on your wedding' or something like that.
I'd like to know this too. I am sitting in Starbucks at present drinking tea and using their free wifi 😊😊
Is this following the gay lifestyle?
That was my (fairly self-evident) take on the situation too. Gay marriage is on the books, and it really isn't necessary to go out of your way to antagonise people who, for one reason or another, aren't totally down with it.