A Belfast County Court has ruled in favour of gay rights advocate Gareth Lee in finding a Belfast bakery guilty of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. The Christian owned Ashers Bakery refused to bake a cake for Mr Lee that included a slogan stating “Support Gay Marriage”. Mr Lee had also requested that a picture of Sesame Street characters Bert and Ernie hugging each other be included on the cake. Mr Lee had hoped to present the cake to the Belfast lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender voluntary group QueerSpace. In bringing his case for discrimination Mr Lee was supported by the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland.
At the initial court hearing Mr Lee claimed that the refusal to fulfil his order made him feel like a lesser person. He claimed that the refusal was due to the ‘Support Gay Marriage’ slogan he hoped to have imprinted on the cake and was also directly linked to his own sexual orientation. Daniel McArthur, Managing Director of Ashers bakery claimed they could not carry out Mr Lee’s order as he believed gay marriage was “contrary to the Bible”. Mr McArthur further claimed that “Before God we felt this was something we could not do. We were not doing this in defiance of the law . . . our Christian faith is of the utmost importance, it is how we live our lives.”
Senior Counsel for Mr Lee, Robin Allen QC argued that the case centred on contract law principles. Mr Allen put forward the argument that “law becomes entirely fragile” if commercial contracts could be broken for subjective reasons such as one’s view on gay marriage. Mr Allen further argued that the refusal was not based solely on the slogan requested but also on the basis of Mr Lee’s sexuality. Mr Allen argued that the combination of the marriage equality slogan and the intended recipient of the cake being a gay rights group would suggest that Mr Lee “was likely to be gay”.
Senior Counsel for Mr McArthur, David Scoffield argued that the inclusion of the slogan on the cake would amount to an act of promotion of a cause the McArthur’s strongly disagreed with. Mr Scoffield claimed that the MacArthur’s “neither knew or cared about Mr Lee’s sexual orientation or his religious beliefs, if any, or his political opinions”.
Ruling in favour of Mr Lee, Judge Isobel Brownlie outlined how Ashers Baking Company was not a religious institution or organisation but rather a business run to make profit. Ultimately Justice Brownlie found Ashers Baking Company “guilty of unlawful discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation” which amounted to “direct discrimination for which there can be no justification”.
Click here to read an article in the Irish Times on the case.
Click here to read an article in the Belfast Telegraph on the case.