{"id":7769,"date":"2014-07-11T15:39:40","date_gmt":"2014-07-11T14:39:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/?p=7769"},"modified":"2014-07-11T16:08:55","modified_gmt":"2014-07-11T15:08:55","slug":"ashers-baking-discriminated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/ashers-baking-discriminated\/","title":{"rendered":"Ashers Baking ‘Discriminated’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The campaigning cake was baked by another firm.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A bakery firm in Northern Ireland is facing a discrimination case<\/a><\/strong> after refusing to bake a cake with a slogan supporting ‘gay marriage’<\/p>\n

Ashers Baking Company, which is owned and run by the McArthur family, who are Christians, declined an order from a gay rights activist asking for a cake featuring the Sesame Street puppets Bert and Ernie with a slogan saying ‘Support Gay Marriage’.<\/p>\n

Marriage between people of the same sex is illegal in Northern Ireland. \u00a0In April 2014 the Stormont Assembly rejected a Sinn Fein motion<\/a><\/strong> to change the definition of marriage for the third time in eighteen months.<\/p>\n

The customer also wanted the cake to feature the logo of a Belfast-based campaign group called “Queerspace”.<\/p>\n

The cake was ordered for a civic event in Bangor Castle Town Hall, County Down, to mark the invented ‘International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia’, ‘IDAHOT’ in May.<\/p>\n

\"Cllr<\/a>
Homosexual Cllr Andrew Muir campaigns for ‘gay marriage’ by cutting the ‘QueerSpace’ cake.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The event, hosted by Councillor Andrew Muir, the openly-homosexual Mayor of North Down for\u00a0\u00a0the divisive Alliance Party, went ahead after another company provided a cake.<\/p>\n

But now, six weeks after the event, the County Antrim firm has received a letter from a self-important quango called the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n

The firm’s general manager, Daniel\u00a0McArthur, said that his firm offered the customer a full refund<\/a><\/strong>, which was collected shortly after the order was refused.<\/p>\n

“We thought that was the end of it, but approximately six weeks later we received a letter from the Equality Commission. The Equality Commission’s letter said that we had discriminated against the customer on the grounds of his sexual orientation.<\/p>\n

“It asked us to propose how we would recompense the customer for this discrimination. It also said it would pursue legal proceedings if we didn’t respond within a seven-day time period,” Mr McArthur said.<\/p>\n

The watchdog confirmed it is assisting the customer. \u00a0In a statement, it said: “The Equality Commission for Northern Ireland provides advice and can provide assistance to people who complain to us that they have suffered unlawful discrimination.<\/p>\n

“In this case the commission has granted assistance to the complainant, and has written to the company concerned on his behalf. \u00a0The commission will consider any response before taking further action.”<\/p>\n

\"Sammy<\/a>
Sammy Wilson, MP for East Antrim, left, presents the Newtownabbey Business Person of the Year award to Colin McArthur of Ashers Baking Company.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) said the Equality Commission had overstepped the mark and the complaint highlighted the need for a “conscience clause” to protect Christians and others who have deeply held beliefs.<\/p>\n

DUP MP Nigel Dodds said: “The case re-opens the debate about how exactly religious belief is respected within the United Kingdom and the need for someone’s conscience to be protected whilst ensuring that discrimination does not occur.”<\/p>\n

Mr Dodds could point out that Ashers have not discriminated against the complainant on the grounds of his sexual orientation, although this\u00a0should in conscience be their right.<\/p>\n

They have instead objected to manufacturing a product carrying a contentious political message.<\/p>\n

Ashers could equally have objected to producing icing depicting the Sesame Street’s ‘Bert’ and ‘Ernie’ out of respect for the copyright protection attached to those characters.<\/p>\n

The Equality Commission for Northern Ireland is now considering its next step.<\/p>\n

Equality Commission for Northern Ireland:
\nTelephone: 028 90 500 600
\nTextphone: 028 90 500 589 Fax: 028 90 248 687
\nEquality House 7-9 Shaftesbury Square Belfast BT2 7DP<\/p>\n

information@equalityni.org<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Find out how to join Christian Voice and stand up for the King of kings (clicking on the link below does not commit you to join)<\/strong>
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<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A bakery firm in Northern Ireland is facing a discrimination case after refusing to bake a cake with a slogan supporting ‘gay marriage’ Ashers Baking Company, which is owned and run by the McArthur family, who are Christians, declined an order from a gay rights activist asking for a cake featuring the Sesame Street puppets […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,11,86],"tags":[1301,1302],"class_list":["post-7769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian-freedom","category-homosexuality-trans","category-secularism","tag-ashers-baking","tag-equality-commission-for-northern-ireland"],"aioseo_notices":[],"rttpg_featured_image_url":null,"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"Stephen","author_link":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/author\/stephen\/"},"rttpg_comment":14,"rttpg_category":"Christian freedom<\/a> Homosexuality & Trans<\/a> Secularism<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"A bakery firm in Northern Ireland is facing a discrimination case after refusing to bake a cake with a slogan supporting ‘gay marriage’ Ashers Baking Company, which is owned and run by the McArthur family, who are Christians, declined an order from a gay rights activist asking for a cake featuring the Sesame Street puppets…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7769\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}