Christian Bakery vs Queerspace

[Mario149]

popeyewhite said:

Mario149 said:

IMO, frankly yes. If you run a business, you leave your sky fairy beliefs/rabid atheism/whatever at home and act like a grown up and be bloody professional at your job. If putting a completely legal political slogan on a cake that in no way represents your views or requires your support offends you enough that you won't do it,

Now you'll merely have to invent an excuse?

Mario149 said:

you've got some big issues in your life,

It's not a big issue - it's against someone's beliefs. Just like believing in the sky fairy is against yours.

Mario149 said:

you shouldn't be running a business and should probably instead be seeking psychological help.

Believe me that alone is not cause to seek therapy.

You don't invent an excuse, you just do your damn job and stop being precious. I have a very strong belief that capital punishment is fundamentally wrong and frankly evil. I abhor the very concept of it in the modern world. But if I worked in a print shop and someone came in asking for a placard saying "Support the Death Penalty" so they could wave it around outside parliament or some such, I'd still do my job and bloody print it for them.

[anonymous-user]

Mario149 said:

otolith said:

Eric Mc said:

Mario149 said:

IMO, frankly yes. If you run a business, you leave your sky fairy beliefs/rabid atheism/whatever at home and act like a grown up and be bloody professional at your job. If putting a completely legal political slogan on a cake that in no way represents your views or requires your support offends you enough that you won't do it, you've got some big issues in your life, you shouldn't be running a business and should probably instead be seeking psychological help.

So, professional leave ethics at home when they go to work?

I'd better reread my Ethics Manual from the ACCA then. I must have missed that bit

You mean the ethics manual that tells you how you ought to behave in a professional context instead of relying upon your own personal beliefs?

What otolith said

Bakers don't have a professional body with a rule of conduct. I worked with an old chap once who had been a prisoner of war and hated the Japanese with a vengeance. The company partnered with Suzuki and he refused to be in any team which included Japanese so I suppose now he could be charged with the same offence and potentially locked up. Again.

[Mario149]

ViperDave said:

Eric Mc said:

otolith said:

You mean the ethics manual that tells you how you ought to behave in a professional context instead of relying upon your own personal beliefs?

Ethics are matters I hold personally as well.

One of the ethics pointed out is "What happens if you don't want to deal with a particular client's request because you have an ethical problem with it"?

For instance, you have a business rule that you don't get involved in political campaigning - for whatever reason.

Edited by Eric Mc on Wednesday 26th October 14:17

Well as the judge pointed out in this case, that was their legal remedy. They could have changed the offer such that it was not discriminatory by not offering cakes with political messages. But they wanted their cake and eat it by being prepared to make a support heterosexual marriage cake, which made their actions discriminatory against the gay community who were intrinsically linked to the message.

essentially the bakers appear to be morons

[otolith]

Mario149 said:

essentially the bakers appear to be morons

I hope the good Christian satisfaction of giving the middle finger to a customer whose values they didn't like was worth all the trouble. They could easily have avoided this had they not wished to make a point.

[anonymous-user]

So because they made wedding cakes they were being discriminatory.

They aren't morons. They're hard working bakers with a business

What's the background of the gay bloke - Employed? Employable? I wonder...

[anonymous-user]

otolith said:

I hope the good Christian satisfaction of giving the middle finger to a customer whose values they didn't like was worth all the trouble. They could easily have avoided this had they not wished to make a point.

Or the customer could have been man enough to walk away. There wouldn't have been a case unless he pushed it so why say it was up to the Bakers to avoid it.

[sidicks]

As far as I'm concerned, anti-discrimination should be about equality and avoiding genuine disadvantage in society, not to force people to go against their personal beliefs.

[Derek Smith]

V6Pushfit said:

So because they made wedding cakes they were being discriminatory.

They aren't morons. They're hard working bakers with a business

What's the background of the gay bloke - Employed? Employable? I wonder...

Keep up at the back. It was nothing to do with making cakes. You have made assumptions about the bakers' intelligence, and how hard they work. You ask questions on immaterial matters.

Did you mean to say you wander?

[Mario149]

jonby said:

Is it not common sense that a business should be free to refuse custom work for whatever reason it wants ?

No, not if it's discrimatory. You're free to come up with business rules that deny everyone equally, but not free to come up with ones which discriminate against "protected chatacteristics" as I think ATG put it.

[ATG]

sidicks said:

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"?

No doubt they could, but that isn't going to side step their obligations to abide by anti-discrimination law.

If they had had a general policy of never writing the word "marriage" on any cake, then they'd have been OK.

Worrying that someone somewhere might be offended by a message on a cake supporting gay marriage puts then squarely back in the frame for discriminating against homosexuals. They're just substituting their expectation of someone elses discriminatory prejudice for their own and then acting upon it. "Sorry, Paddy. I'm not going to serve you because I fear it might offend my other customers because I don't think they like the Irish."

[ATG]

popeyewhite said:

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?

And that addresses my question how?

[Mario149]

V6Pushfit said:

Bakers don't have a professional body with a rule of conduct. I worked with an old chap once who had been a prisoner of war and hated the Japanese with a vengeance. The company partnered with Suzuki and he refused to be in any team which included Japanese so I suppose now he could be charged with the same offence and potentially locked up. Again.

You suppose wrong.

[otolith]

V6Pushfit said:

otolith said:

I hope the good Christian satisfaction of giving the middle finger to a customer whose values they didn't like was worth all the trouble. They could easily have avoided this had they not wished to make a point.

Or the customer could have been man enough to walk away. There wouldn't have been a case unless he pushed it so why say it was up to the Bakers to avoid it.

They won the case. The bakery lost, because they were in the wrong. But they could have got away with being in the wrong if they hadn't been so keen to make their nasty little point.

[anonymous-user]

Eric Mc said:

So, professional leave ethics at home when they go to work?

Well, yes.

As long as they act legally and the business is acting legally, the personal ethics of the business owner or employee should be very much left at home, especially if it has the potential to interfere with providing customer service or making a sale.

Many businesses probably wouldn't function at all if owners or employees got bogged down in their personal ethics.

[Einion Yrth]

otolith said:

The bakery lost, because they were in the wrong.

The bakery lost because they were judged to be in breach of the law. Perhaps a difference too subtle for some...

[sidicks]

NinjaPower said:

Well, yes.

As long as they act legally and the business is acting legally, the personal ethics of the business owner or employee should be very much left at home, especially if it has the potential to interfere with providing customer service or making a sale.

Many businesses probably wouldn't function at all if owners or employees got bogged down in their personal ethics.

Oh, the irony!

On just about every thread about bankers, people repeatedly claim that "it doesn't matter whether it was legal or not, whether it was moral is what matters"...!!

[otolith]

Einion Yrth said:

otolith said:

The bakery lost, because they were in the wrong.

The bakery lost because they were judged to be in breach of the law. Perhaps a difference too subtle for some...

They were in the wrong by the criteria by which they were judged. They are welcome to their reward in heaven, though I hope they haven't been wearing mixed fabrics.

[Randy Winkman]

sidicks said:

NinjaPower said:

Well, yes.

As long as they act legally and the business is acting legally, the personal ethics of the business owner or employee should be very much left at home, especially if it has the potential to interfere with providing customer service or making a sale.

Many businesses probably wouldn't function at all if owners or employees got bogged down in their personal ethics.

Oh, the irony!

On just about every thread about bankers, people repeatedly claim that "it doesn't matter whether it was legal or not, whether it was moral is what matters"...!!

I'm not sure that many people use that argument in support of whether bankers or anyone else should be prosecuted under the law.

[Einion Yrth]

otolith said:

Einion Yrth said:

otolith said:

The bakery lost, because they were in the wrong.

The bakery lost because they were judged to be in breach of the law. Perhaps a difference too subtle for some...

They were in the wrong by the criteria by which they were judged. They are welcome to their reward in heaven, though I hope they haven't been wearing mixed fabrics.

Are all laws correct, moral and ethical by mere dint of being laws?

[anonymous-user]

sidicks said:

NinjaPower said:

Well, yes.

As long as they act legally and the business is acting legally, the personal ethics of the business owner or employee should be very much left at home, especially if it has the potential to interfere with providing customer service or making a sale.

Many businesses probably wouldn't function at all if owners or employees got bogged down in their personal ethics.

Oh, the irony!

On just about every thread about bankers, people repeatedly claim that "it doesn't matter whether it was legal or not, whether it was moral is what matters"...!!

I nearly put 'banking' as an example as it happens because it's probably quite true. I was offered a job in a bank about 12 years ago, and essentially the position required me to sell as many ficnancial products to people as possible, even if they were unsuitable.

But many other professions require the employees to leave all ethics at home.

Factories that make land mines and ammunition, slaughterhouses, battery farming of animals, animal testing laboratories are just a few. Oh, I nearly forgot banking and estate agents.