Christian Bakery vs Queerspace

[sidicks]

ViperDave said:

Contrived case or not, what it does is set a clear message that businesses have to be non discrimatory in their practices. There are LGBT people experiencing discrimination every day. This will help them. At the very least businesses that still don't want to serve them will have to be more careful and or take the hit on not doing business which includes the area they object to. Ie make no political cakes.

The case doesn't represent genuine meaningful discrimination as far as I'm concerned. By all means protest against that, but this appears to putting the rights of a minority above of the majority, which i think is wrong.

ViperDave said:

The slippery slope argument is frequently rolled out against Lgbt rights and it holds no water.

I disagree.

[SpeckledJim]

jonby said:

One of the real shames in all this is that at it's heart, we have a business run by devout Christians who appear to have no problem in serving gay customers or having gay employees, suffering at the hands of a deliberate set up by a group who had an ulterior motive, which may well help set up a precedent which achieves a greater good, but creates a victim out of people I feel sorry for and leaves a 'win' for people who have behaved in an underhand manner

That's true, but having been pulled-up on it they didn't say 'hmm, yes, I suppose when you put it like that we did treat them differently, sorry'. Instead they insisted that they were entitled to give inferior treatment to certain groups. Not very Christian. Not very Samaritan.

jonby said:

Surely it's better to address the heart of the issue in each instance (i.e. discrimination), instead of just creating a culture of 'how do we get round the law'. I recognise that's a somewhat idealistic stance of course

Well yes, but the religious already sit in a bubble of protection of their own, which they use to defend all attempts to address their various disgusting iniquities.

They won't be taught, lectured-to or cajoled, shamed or embarrassed. Seems they have to be legislated against. Kicking and screaming.

[sidicks]

SpeckledJim said:

Well yes, but the religious already sit in a bubble of protection of their own, which they use to defend all attempts to address their various disgusting iniquities.

They won't be taught, lectured-to or cajoled, shamed or embarrassed. Seems they have to be legislated against. Kicking and screaming.

What a load of generalised tosh.

[SpeckledJim]

sidicks said:

SpeckledJim said:

Well yes, but the religious already sit in a bubble of protection of their own, which they use to defend all attempts to address their various disgusting iniquities.

They won't be taught, lectured-to or cajoled, shamed or embarrassed. Seems they have to be legislated against. Kicking and screaming.

What a load of generalised tosh.

If you can credibly label a belief a religious belief, then it gets special recognition and status. Unarguable.

Religions are riven with sexism and sexual discrimination. Also completely unarguable.

[popeyewhite]

SpeckledJim said:

Well yes, but the religious already sit in a bubble of protection of their own, which they use to defend all attempts to address their various disgusting iniquities.

They won't be taught, lectured-to or cajoled, shamed or embarrassed. Seems they have to be legislated against. Kicking and screaming.

Bakery shop owners, in their bubble, accompanied by their disgusting iniquities:

[Eric Mc]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

Eric Mc said:

I'd prefer to be considered stupid than rude.

Your preference is granted. I don't think you're rude.

That's a relief.

[sidicks]

SpeckledJim said:

If you can credibly label a belief a religious belief, then it gets special recognition and status. Unarguable.

Religions are riven with sexism and sexual discrimination. Also completely unarguable.

I think your prejudices are very apparent.

[SpeckledJim]

sidicks said:

SpeckledJim said:

If you can credibly label a belief a religious belief, then it gets special recognition and status. Unarguable.

Religions are riven with sexism and sexual discrimination. Also completely unarguable.

I think your prejudices are very apparent.

I hope so.

Still true though, innit.

[sidicks]

SpeckledJim said:

sidicks said:

I think your prejudices are very apparent.

I hope so.

As a reminder:
Prejudice is prejudgement or forming an opinion before becoming aware of the relevant facts of a case.
Prejudice can also refer to unfounded beliefs and may include "any unreasonable attitude that is unusually resistant to rational influence

HTH

[ViperDave]

sidicks said:

ViperDave said:

Contrived case or not, what it does is set a clear message that businesses have to be non discrimatory in their practices. There are LGBT people experiencing discrimination every day. This will help them. At the very least businesses that still don't want to serve them will have to be more careful and or take the hit on not doing business which includes the area they object to. Ie make no political cakes.

The case doesn't represent genuine meaningful discrimination as far as I'm concerned. By all means protest against that, but this appears to putting the rights of a minority above of the majority, which i think is wrong.

How so? They wanted a custom cake, something that is on offer to everyone. They didn't get it because the message they wanted which was intrinsically linked to a protected group and the business withdrew the offer for this reason rather than changing the offer in a non discriminatory way. What majority was disadvantaged? The business had legal remedies, they didn't use them.

ViperDave said:

The slippery slope argument is frequently rolled out against Lgbt rights and it holds no water.

I disagree.

The sky is still up there's. It won't fall down because people treat others equally. Something that is supposed to be a Christian thing to do. Society will only allow us down the slope as far and as fast as the majority feel comfortable with.

[ViperDave]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

stty ones will and it will be harder for them to do so and do the business they want to within the law. Others may welcome the clarity, and the good ones won't be affected because they weren't discriminating in the first place

[SpeckledJim]

sidicks said:

SpeckledJim said:

sidicks said:

I think your prejudices are very apparent.

I hope so.

As a reminder:
Prejudice is prejudgement or forming an opinion before becoming aware of the relevant facts of a case.
Prejudice can also refer to unfounded beliefs and may include "any unreasonable attitude that is unusually resistant to rational influence

HTH

Ooof. A shot to the vocabulary.

[ATG]

popeyewhite said:

SpeckledJim said:

popeyewhite said:

TwigtheWonderkid said:

Dress it up how you wish. Decent people know to leave their personal prejudices at home and not to bring them into work.

If they don't get the service they wish for from a Baker decent people just go to another one. Decent people respect the beliefs and values of others.

Whereas bakers...

...who have Christian beliefs and are decent people quite rightly feel they don't have to adorn a cake with a message that offends them. All this sorry episode teaches us is that the Christian faith, which has basically influenced our entire way of life over centuries, has been further undermined by the loud litigious PC minority that society seems cowed to at the moment. Should a business cease to trade because of writing on a cake?

Quite wrongly in fact. And you can't claim that these bakers represent Christianity in general as plenty of Christians disagree with them.

This topic is a little like the discussions triggered by the jail terms handed down to people who have tried to take driving offence convictions for their spouses. Speeding and cakes are generally pretty trivial things. But discriminating against homosexuals and purgery are serious.

People are trying to find symmetries between different types of prejudice. Morally some, though certainly not all, of these may exist. But the discrimination laws are based on the ideas of specific protected characteristics and these don't give rise to those symmetries. So, for example, the symmetry of freedom to support or oppose gay marriage is of no relevance.

Failing to think in terms of the fixed set of protected characteristics also leads to the false analogies of Muslim bakers making pro-bacon cakes or whatever. The question is "is bacon-eating a protected characteristic?" Answer: no.

To those who think the bakers should have been free to refuse to make this cake, how would you re-draught the law to both protect homosexuals from discrimination while also allowing the bakers to refuse to make the cake?

[jonby]

SpeckledJim said:

jonby said:

One of the real shames in all this is that at it's heart, we have a business run by devout Christians who appear to have no problem in serving gay customers or having gay employees, suffering at the hands of a deliberate set up by a group who had an ulterior motive, which may well help set up a precedent which achieves a greater good, but creates a victim out of people I feel sorry for and leaves a 'win' for people who have behaved in an underhand manner

That's true, but having been pulled-up on it they didn't say 'hmm, yes, I suppose when you put it like that we did treat them differently, sorry'. Instead they insisted that they were entitled to give inferior treatment to certain groups. Not very Christian. Not very Samaritan.

jonby said:

Surely it's better to address the heart of the issue in each instance (i.e. discrimination), instead of just creating a culture of 'how do we get round the law'. I recognise that's a somewhat idealistic stance of course

Well yes, but the religious already sit in a bubble of protection of their own, which they use to defend all attempts to address their various disgusting iniquities.

They won't be taught, lectured-to or cajoled, shamed or embarrassed. Seems they have to be legislated against. Kicking and screaming.

As others have said, this was not about the fact the customer was openly gay. So they didn't give 'inferior treatment to a certain group' (unless by group you mean those who support gay marriage as opposed to those who are gay) and this has nothing to do with 'religious protection' because whilst the bakery's reasons may have been led by their religious beliefs, views against gay marriage are hardly the sole preserve of religious groups

[jonby]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

that's exactly the issue

made worse in this instance because again, they weren't discriminating against the customers because they are gay. It just confuses the issue of discrimination and is more likely to result in work for lawyers drafting appropriate terms of business for firms to get round the issue than it is to actually change or reduce any real discrimination

[sidicks]

ATG said:

To those who think the bakers should have been free to refuse to make this cake, how would you re-draught the law to both protect homosexuals from discrimination while also allowing the bakers to refuse to make the cake?

Would the bakery be allowed to have a sign that says "we reserve the right to refuse to incorporate text or imagery which we believe could cause offence"?

[anonymous-user]

Any other normal person would just go and get a bloody cake elsewhere. These shenanigans do no good to a gay or any cause, just piss everybody off that once again there's a load of silly flouncing. If he had any regards to the bakers or anyone's own rights as a fellow human he would have taken his business to another baker and be done with it. Maybe he's got no other things bettter to do I wonder what the background is.

[popeyewhite]

ATG said:

To those who think the bakers should have been free to refuse to make this cake, how would you re-draught the law to both protect homosexuals from discrimination while also allowing the bakers to refuse to make the cake?

No homosexuals were discriminated against. The Bakers refused a pro-gay marriage slogan. I don't really see anything wrong with not publicising an advert you don't like. On another note, are we still allowed to ask for Black Forest Gateau?

[sidicks]

DELETED: Comment made by a member who's account has been deleted.

And yet 99.9999% of them didn't know or care.

[anonymous-user]

Hopefully Ashers Bakery will have continued huge support and do a roaring trade as a result of this from customers that appreciate them and their baking. Good luck to em