Noone said it wasn't bigotry - you can be bigoted, it's not illegal to be bigoted. We are talking about a place where an elected politician put a Kingsmill loaf on his bread and filmed it to mock the 12 people who died in the Kingsmill massacre just before the anniversary of it - he wasn't prosecuted for it. Being a horrible person is not illegal - boycott the place, don't shop their, don't buy there and spread to everyone that was done there - it may not be illegal but that doesn't mean it was wrong. I just don't see a way of changing the law which would not require persecuted minorities to put do services for political views/parties they disagree with.
Sexual orientation is really not equivalent to race. One is fluid the other is not.
Are we really going to pretend it's just the DUP and it's British Colonialism, and that it's not alot more complicated that that? Also the DUP didn't exist til after the Troubles started. And Sinn Fein are just as bad. They actually do have convicted murderers as their Special Advisors. My dad lost 4 friends in the Troubles and nearly got killed himself, and I have had to grow up in a divided country where I've been told when I was like 5 that I didn't believe in God and was a heathen cus I was a protestant by a neighbour girl down the street who I actually played with cus "her principal told her so". I went to an SDLP meeting at Uni with a friend and a Ulster Unionist MLA was there because he was invited by a lecturer and he answere their questions and was polite. A guy after he left asked "Who invited one of them?" and everyone laughed and snickered. Northern Ireland is alot more complicated then you are acting, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't go around talking about something you don't seem to know much about (some of your history is just wrong).
Stop trying to act like this is about thought policing bigotry. This is about concrete actions that bigots take, and it is definitely not legal to act on bigotry in many cases, because people fight for laws to be changed
I don't see a law were you can make it illegal to do this without also stopping people on the other side of the spectrum from refusing service to political views/parties they disagree with. For example, cus of Northern Ireland's history being Protestant or Catholic is a protected class here - that would mean it could be seen as discrimination for a gay baker to refuse to make a cake with a message supporting the DUP on it as they are the major unionist party and it could be seen as discriminating against a Protestant customer. Or say a victim of the IRA refuses to make Leaflets for Sinn Fein - I hate what Ashers stand for but it's alot more complicated then you are making it out to be. To me freedom of expression also means freedom to refuse - just like I think it's fine for this place to refuse to discuss Gamergate as "it was about ethics in videogame journalism". Things are slowly changing in Northern Ireland - 33% of DUP supporters support Gay Marriage, 33 % don't care either way and 33 % are opposed. 10 years ago it would have been way on the other side. I am in favor of gay rights, I want a referendum on the issue so that the actual people have a say and not the parties which are mostly voted in on one issue anyway (Unionist vs Nationalist). I just don't see a way of making the law which would make the bakers make the cake while not messing up other shit and hurting a bunch of other people including the LGBT community.
Research the civil rights act. It works fine, and it is necessary. This is not a slippery slope.
We have pretty much the same act except our is even better as it can protect for people thinking you are a certain religion. gender ,sexuality, disability etc and discriminating you, even when you aren't. i think you may need to do a bit more research yourself.
It's clearly not working given the ruling.
When people say "fluid" they mean that the spectrum from heterosexuality to homosexuality is not marked by discrete points but is instead continuous. You can't really say you are 80% gay, for instance. It doesn't mean that it changes (but one's perception of their sexuality might). We still have labels to define these things but it doesn't really capture all the nuances. Gender identity is in the same boat.
They do bake cakes for gay people - that was the problem, they didn't discriminate against gay customers, they had literally baked wedding cakes for gay customers before. And it's not like there weren't alot of gay people who also didn't agree with the case either. The bakery did not believe in gay marriage - they are not required to make products supporting gay marriage. And if you change the law that way, you change the law for every dicriminated group which has political views or political parties associated with it which includes Protestant or Catholics which makes up basically nearly 100% of the population. Which means you can argue that you can refuse service for anything - like for example the idea of a gay baker being forced to do a message in support of DUP on a cake despite they are against gay marriage because a Protestant customer asked for it.
Comparison is not absolute equivalence, and race is absolutely "fluid", if you want to call it that. Besides being a societal invention, the way we know it.
Oh right, I forgot the point I was supposed to make.
How do you not understand that "not believing in gay marriage" is inherently bigoted?
Yes, everyone deserves respect. That said, speaking from personal experience, sexuality is not immutable. That's not a conversation for this topic though.
I think you're mixing up a person's sexuality with a person's perception of their sexuality. I'm gay and I thought I was straight until I was in high school, but that doesn't mean that I turned gay. I was always gay and had to take some introspection of myself to understand that.
It's bigoted - I've repeated again and again that it's bigoted. But I don't see a way of changing the law without curtailing other people's right to refuse service based on political belief - I don't want victims to be forced to have to go against their beliefs which this case would have caused. My above example is not an extreme - that could defintely have happened if you upheld the case brought by the Equality Commision. Look I think we are on the same side here - if you can legetimentaly find a way to make a law were that wouldn't happen, I'd love to here it. But I don't think even your US law of Civil Rights Act would have held up the right to get that message on the cake,
Not mixing up anything. If it doesn't manifest one way, it isn't that way until it is.
Sexuality is more complicated than that. It's not really a manner of it manifesting; a person's sexuality is always present and it's up to the individual to recognize that part of themselves.
Do you think this comparison works, seeing how that's a group responsible for terrible atrocities? I'm actually pretty sure there are hate speech laws that would apply, seeing how openly supporting ISIS is clearly inciting violence.
I think so. I've heard stories about exactly this happening.
But it's so mind numbingly simple. If your belief involves you infringing upon the equal treatment of a protected class, you are not entitled to that belief.
But people aren't static and that part of themselves may not have developed until later in life. That doesn't mean it was always present.
I would think that guy is an ass but would be fine with that being allowed. And you do realise Northern Ireland does not have gay marriage right? So that's not seen as a protected right. Nor is being in favor of woman having careers - you just wouldn't be allowed to not hire them cus they are woman. Equal treatment of a protected class is being seen an stoping them from having employment or service because of that discrimination. Political beliefs against them are allowed. I don't see who your law would actually work without basically forcing people regardless of political opinion to have to provide service to an oposing political. Religious denomination is a protected class in Northern Ireland, and has equal footing to LGBT, what happens when you pit a Protestant customer with a DUP cake against a gay baker, who wins out? You haven't actually put any solutions or any ideas of laws, and only say it's really simple and then accuse me that if it happened to woman I'd want it against the law. No i'd boycott them just like I am doing to Asher's bakery.
No, that's not the case if proper hate speech laws exist. Making ISIS flyers is clearly inciting violence, thus illegal, thus the print shop doesn't have to do anything.
See, I'm sure you'd gladly find many, but in some situations, you might just be screwed, because "the many" don't exist in a way that's helpful to you.
What about a person who'd lost family to the IRA but they were forced to make flyers for Sinn Fein, the legal political wing of the IRA who are actually in government and would not go under hate speech laws? What then?
I don't know what to tell you if you're not against basic discrimination against women.
That would be awful, yes. The thing is, there is no perfect solution. I think the downsides of requiring people to finish the product regardless of icing text are less severe than the downsides of letting them choose to discriminate, like in the case that caused this thread.
I don't want woman to have to provide services to people who are sexist to them, I don't want LGBT people to have to provide services to people that were homophobic to them, I don't want minorities to be forced to provide services to people who were racist to them. I believe in the right to refuse service for political beliefs - it works the other way. And you haven't come up with a way of protecting that right. You ignore the problems I come up with - it is a legal issue because it's about making law.
Yes, people aren't static, but the aspects of a person's identity are static by definition. If such an aspect could be changed then it is useless as an identifier.
