A 'Gay Weddg Cake' Battle Is Heatg Up In Northern Ireland, Too | HuffPost Voic

Contents:

• NORTHERN IRELAND "GAY MARRIAGE KE" URT SE THROWN OUT BY EU AFTER 7 YEARS
• THE MORAL OF THE GAY WEDDG KE ROW: THE LAW N’T CREATE TOLERANCE
• BELFAST BAKERY WAS FREE TO REFE GAY-MARRIAGE CAKE, COURT RUL
• NORTHERN IRELAND HAS A ‘GAY KE’ NTROVERSY, TOO
• A 'GAY WEDDG CAKE' BATTLE IS HEATG UP IN NORTHERN IRELAND, TOO
• NORTHERN IRELAND BAKERY REF TO BAKE GAY WEDDG KE
• NORTHERN IRELAND BAKERY THAT REFED CAKE FOR GAY WEDDG LOS APPEAL
• BERT AND ERNIE GAY MARRIAGE KE REFED BY NORTHERN IRELAND BAKERY
• I’VE CHANGED MY MD ON THE GAY KE ROW. HERE’S WHY
• ‘GAY KE’ ROW: MAN LOS SEVEN-YEAR BATTLE AGAST BELFAST BAKERY

NORTHERN IRELAND "GAY MARRIAGE KE" URT SE THROWN OUT BY EU AFTER 7 YEARS

A Northern Irish gay activist who attempted to orr a ke wh a pro-gay marriage slogan has lost a seven-year legal battle after the European Court of Human Rights led his se as "admissible". Gareth Lee took legal actn agast Ashers bakery 2014 after the Christian-n Belfast bakery refed to make a ke wh a slogan statg "support gay marriage".

Lee is a member of the LGBT advocy group QueerSpace and attempted to orr a ke wh Same Street characters Bert and Ernie along wh the slogan "Support Gay Marriage" for a private functn celebratg Internatnal Day Agast Homophobia May 2014.

THE MORAL OF THE GAY WEDDG KE ROW: THE LAW N’T CREATE TOLERANCE

They uld not brg themselv to ice a ke wh the slogan, Support Gay Marriage, which they strongly oppose and which is still illegal Northern Ireland. It had been orred by a gay rights activist, Gareth Lee, honour of Northern Ireland’s first gay mayor, Andrew Muir of North Down.

Muir is by all acunts a brave and outspoken champn of gay rights a provce of the Uned Kgdom still wily hostile to the ia. The McArthurs nied this, retortg that they sell k to many gay people; was the slogan that neher they nor their staff uld wre.

BELFAST BAKERY WAS FREE TO REFE GAY-MARRIAGE CAKE, COURT RUL

To my md, a better parallel would be the Catholic Herald refg to publish an anti-Catholic gay marriage is still illegal Northern Ireland is a grim ment on Bra’s long and petent ctodianship of Ulster’s ernment. Gay marriage will e to Northern Ireland one day.

If, as expected, l favour, will validate years of mpaigng by gay rights groups, but will tear open wounds that n tly heal only wh time and persuasn. Most allow “religly affiliated anisatns” to ny goods and servic to gay weddgs. In many stat, dividuals n ny gay men, lbians and other groups acmodatn and even jobs, claimg the nstutn’s “ee exercise” of relig belief.

NORTHERN IRELAND HAS A ‘GAY KE’ NTROVERSY, TOO

The effect was to rtore native Amerin practic, but also to licence state legislatur to allow discrimatn agast gay marriag on grounds of is adamant that the secular law mt enjoy primacy any morn society. Homophobia, relig prejudice and creatnism are still enmic. Muir has lled for “rpectful dialogue and mment” on gay marriage, yet he weled the lg agast the McArthurs.

A 'GAY WEDDG CAKE' BATTLE IS HEATG UP IN NORTHERN IRELAND, TOO

Although the person who requted the ke was gay, a five-judge panel found that the bakery owners’ refal was based not on his sexual orientatn, but on their Prottant fah’s opposn to gay marriage. “There was no discrimatn on grounds of sexual orientatn, ” said the judgment, which overturned the lgs of two lower ced the Uned Stat Supreme Court’s cisn June favor of a Colorado baker who had refed to create a weddg ke for a gay uple, a narrow cisn that left open the larger qutn of whether a bs n discrimate agast gay men and lbians based on First Amendment Brish se centered on Ashers Bakg Company Northern Ireland, which 2014 rejected an orr by the gay activist Gareth Lee for a ke wh the msage “Support Gay Marriage. ” He also wanted imag of the “Same Street” characters Bert and Ernie, nsired by some to be gay Lee tend to share the ke at a meetg support of same-sex marriage Northern Ireland, which do not perm the said he had not known that the bakery’s owners, the McArthur fay, were Christian when he placed his orr.

NORTHERN IRELAND BAKERY REF TO BAKE GAY WEDDG KE

” Lawls/Prs Associatn, via Associated PrsThe judg ced as a precent the Uned Stat Supreme Court se which the Masterpiece Cakhop Colorado refed to bake a weddg ke for a gay uple 2012. A 2016 poll found that 65 percent of people Northern Ireland support same-sex marriage, but that more than half of the regn’s pro-Brish unnists, who are maly Prottant, oppose O’Doherty, the director of the Rabow Project, a Belfast group that supports gay rights, qutned the reasong of the urt lg. ”A versn of this article appears prt on, Sectn A, Page 4 of the New York edn wh the headle: Belfast Bakery Was Free to Refe Bakg Gay-Marriage Cake, Supreme Court Rul.

Weddg k, particular, have bee a battleground for legal disput between those who support gay marriage and those who oppose . Even the humble pizza, far om a staple weddg em, has been dragged to gay marriage ntroversy the Uned, the fight over "gay k" seems to have spread across the Atlantic, to Northern Ireland.

However, the culture wars have gaed a twist their journey across the suatn Northern Ireland trac back to a cisn by Christian-owned Ashers Bakg Company, based County Antrim, to ncel a requt to supply a ke for gay activist Gareth Lee.

NORTHERN IRELAND BAKERY THAT REFED CAKE FOR GAY WEDDG LOS APPEAL

"A ntroversy volvg "gay k" may sound faiar to Amerin ears, but there's an important distctn to be ma here.

In the Uned Stat, the issue has mostly been about weddg k at gay weddgs: Consir the 2013 se Colorado, when a urt led that Masterpiece Cakhop was discrimatg agast a gay uple by refg to provi a ke for their weddg, or the siar se Oregon last year. Memori Pizza Indiana only stoked a natnwi ntroversy earlier this year when publicly announced that would not ter gay weddgs due to the owners' relig se Northern Ireland, however, was not about a weddg ke. Lee, a gay rights activist, had hoped to e his ke to promote the gay marriage e, which is legal the rt of the Uned Kgdom but still illegal Northern Ireland.

The ke Lee wanted would have the Same Street characters Bert and Ernie on , and would have said "Support Gay Marriage.

BERT AND ERNIE GAY MARRIAGE KE REFED BY NORTHERN IRELAND BAKERY

A Wal-Mart Nevada provoked a backlash when refed to provi a ke wh the word "gay" on for a gay-straight male pair gog to prom together.

This cint did not go to urt, of the more parable s that did prompt legal actn is that of Azuvar Bakery Colorado, where a urt agreed that the owners did not discrimate agast a ctomer when they refed to make a ke wh anti-gay msag.

I’VE CHANGED MY MD ON THE GAY KE ROW. HERE’S WHY

Durg the urt se Dubl, Ashers Bakg Company had tried to argue that had not discrimated agast Lee bee he was gay, and that was not his personal sexual preference that led the bakery to refe to make the ke, but the msage on the ke.

‘GAY KE’ ROW: MAN LOS SEVEN-YEAR BATTLE AGAST BELFAST BAKERY

Some outsirs stggle to see that way: As Padraig Reidy put at the Telegraph:For me, the se was not simply one of straightforward homophobia.

If Ashers had simply refed to sell any ke at all to Mr Lee or any other LGBT person, then that would be an obv act of make thgs even more plited, the lg also fs to the ntroversial polics of gay marriage of Northern Ireland, where the Democratic Unnist Party, a socially nservative unnist party wh strong lks to Prottant church, recently blocked a plan to legalize gay marriage Northern Ireland (the Republic of Ireland will host a referendum on gay marriage this week). NEW YORK (Thomson Rters Foundatn) - Court fights over k for same-sex upl the Uned Stat and Northern Ireland are jt the icg on a eper bate about gay rights and whether servic n be refed to certa people, experts said on Tuday. In Belfast, a bakery was found guilty of discrimatn for refg to make a ke wh the words “Support Gay Marriage, ” while the U.

Se before the Supreme Court on Tuday ncerns a baker refg to sell a ke to a gay uple for a s feature a bakery, a ke and a refal to sell to a same-sex uple although laws the two untri differ - but experts say the real issue is whether is permissible to refe a service to some. “I’m a gay mom and havg my children refed beg treated an emergency suatn is terrifyg... Supreme Court heard arguments Tuday the 2012 se of a baker at Masterpiece Cakhop Colorado who said sellg a ke for a gay weddg vlated his relig lawyers argue his k are artistic enavors protected as ee speech and exprsn - but the gay uple argue was a se of unlawful discrimatn based on sexual orientatn.