Friday 22 May 2015

Letter Of The Day: Cakegate

The Guardian.

See also Simon Jenkins The Law Can't Create Tolerance.

3 comments:

  1. It woukd have been interesting if they had ordered the cake with "Don't support gay marriage" on and then scraped the "Don't" off. I wonder how the bakery would have viewed the gays Freedom of Expression.

    Having now read the details of the case I find it hard not to agree with the courts. In fact it has little to do with freedom of expression as the bakery was free to express their views on order but chose not to do so and mislead the customer from the outset. In any event they were free to say we do not support gay marriage but not to turn the customer away because their beliefs clash. It's not like they were being asked to join a march and wave a flag supporting gay marriage just ice a bloody cake for Christ's sake.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Incidentally, I see that the bakery made a point of stating that they are happy to serve gays. Apart from the obvious condescencion of that remark surely this does not chime with their struct religious beliefs either, as the bible clearly states that homosexuality is a sin. Once again cherry-picking their prejudices in the guise of beliefs and using them to discriminate,

    ReplyDelete
  3. The letter is utter bollocks. People are entitled to their beliefs and free to express them. This case makes no difference to that. The problem is when they seek to impose their beliefs on others. At work, all of us have to do things that we would rather not, whether that's be polite to rude customers or impose pay cuts. Where would freedom of expression be, if newsagents refused to sell newspapers containing anything they disagreed with?

    Yes, the cake buyers could have gone to a different bakery. But so could the bakers have just iced the bloody cake. There is a real whiff of vanity and inviting martyrdom around the bakery's attitude and very little evidence of the Christian values of forgiveness, not judging others and loving your neighbour.

    ReplyDelete