Taking sides in an argument can sometimes be disconcerting. You look along the row of those opposed to you and spot faces of people you respect. You glance along the line of those on the same side as you and your heart sinks. I find myself in this situation on the Asher’s Bakery issue. I am particularly unnerved by the fact that our excuse for a Culture Minister, a man who serves all the people by lighting Eleventh Night bonfires while grinning for the cameras. Paul Givan, God between us and all harm, sides with the Ashers Bakery people. So, gritting my teeth and wincing a little, do I.
Why? Because the most concrete objection to the stand of the Ashers people was made by the Chief Justice Declan Morgan. He contends “The fact that a baker provides a cake for a particular team or portrays witches on a Halloween cake does not indicate any support for either.”
Likewise, then, for producing a Gay Cake.
It seems silly to be exercised over a case depicting two Sesame Street characters, but there is an important feature central to the discussion: should people, in the name of equality, be forced to perform actions which are against their principles?
As always, it helps to put yourself in the other guy’s shoes. Would I be happy to produce a cake stating “Fuck the Pope” or “Croppies Lie Down”? I don’t think I would. In fact I can’t see myself doing it, ever.
So is the solution to have all our bakeries run by people with no commitment to any religion or principles – people who are the embodiment of a moral vacuum? I think not. If there are things we would refuse to produce on grounds of principle or belief, justice and equality demands that we leave others the same freedom.
In addition to the ghastly Givan factor, I find arriving at this conclusion painful because the Chief Justice Declan Morgan is, like myself, a former pupil of St Columb’s College. Although let’s be honest: the Chief Justice also accepted a knighthood with all its daft walking-backwards and generally groveling ceremony. Maybe we shouldn’t have been so surprised that he thinks football games and Halloween witches are comparable with moral principles.
Well Jude we’ve been banging on about this case for quite some time and it concluded with a verdict from on high.A decision was made .That didn’t stop the arguing at all, because , for example , the Nolan show sought to extend the debate into his television freakshow.Seemingly rational voices argued the toss backwards and forwards , even after the final decision was already made. Outside of this strange little world of ours , most people scratched their heads as to why there was even a debate at all.
What we really have to dig down really deep into is …”should people, in the name of equality, be forced to perform actions which are against their principles?”….
You’d have to argue about those “principles” and really get to the nub of why those “principles “conflict with reality. You’d have to ask whether or not a specific principle was erroneous or not…or possibly just a foolhardy notion that didn’t have any basis inany known logic. Then again , religious belief does not hang by logic or known reality at all, so that’s where this kind of problem will come up.There’s little point in trying to change reality to attune with an imagined “principle”.
The fact is , you could have a principled belief that the moon was made of cheese and some people might look askanse at your credulity while others might join you in your belief and form a religion based around it; yet when you stand in front of television cameras, in front of the entire world and say that god sits on a golden throne and doesn’t like homosexualit one little bit , as the Ashers actually imply….. people are not asked to argue the toss as to the existence of that” golden throne” …never mind the “god” that sits on it.Do you hear them arguing that the moon is made of Cambozola or Cheddar cheese?…No…because science has discovered that the moon is a large planetary rock which controls the ebb and flow of the tides on earth affecting gravity . That doesn’t stop conspiracy theorists from thinking otherwise or having “principled ” stances about man never having landed on the moon and believing that aliens are living in the darkness on the dark side of it.There is simply no proof .
To make a “principled stance” is well and good if you are not actually talking nonsense.”Speakers’ Corner” in London was a great place to hear all manner of evocative speechifying ,from allsorts of individuals, some of which was lucid sense ,but much of which was arrant nonsense, depending on the individual speaker; each believing the absolute truth of their stance.That’s the real position we are in and that seems to be missed in every argument.When is a principled stance simply arrant nonsense?
The owners of Ashers were not forced to perform any actions which were against their principles. Nor are they being asked to. They are simply being asked to make sure their business complies which equality legislation. Just like everyone else who owns a business.
Harry, if you remove the religious planks from your platform you don’t seem to have much of a platform. Do you actually want to live in a moral vacuum? Do you have any morals? Where did you get them? Do you avoid rape and pillage for the good of society? How would you feel if you were forced to divide your honey with everybody – for ‘equality’ reasons? Sometimes the law is an ass you know. As well as the church.
Fiosrach …have you ever asked yourself how and why civic laws developed in societies and why sometimes people still casually break those laws? Your argument centres on the idea that there would be a moral vacuum without a religious belief . There can be a moral vacuum with or without religion. You might as well say that atheistd do nothing but go around breaking the laws every day because they think they will not be punished in an afterlife .That simply isn’t the case at all.
Laws were gradually developed to protect property of any kind and it was only when men had something to steal that punishments for stealing it were brought into play . Grain was the first real currency and as it was gathered and stored to make flour , it had to be protected from theft. There had to be punishments meted out . It was the same for storing grain as it was for protecting your property …such as your wife , children or beasts.Remember a wife was a “property” until relatively recently.She was treated in much the same way as was a horse as far as civic laws were concerned . “Morality” had very little to do with it.Think about it …many criminals still cleave to their religious beliefs while still breaking the laws.How do you square that kind of sanctimony with someone like Escobar who dealt cocaine on a national scale , murdering hundreds of people as he went, taking over a country and dealing out death on a world-scale, but still believing in god? …or some of our own heroes closer to home who blithely and immorally murder and make excuses for it. Do they believe in god or does it matter?We know enough about killing in Ireland and it seems to be still a very religious place to some eyes. .I dare say the laws developed before religion ever did anyway and they were eventually compiled as a set of rules to live by (The Ten Commandments? or similar maybe ?)…long before any notion of a supernatural story was compiled around the fires.
Moral laws do not develope in a vacuum. You must give people a reason to support a law. Two ways to do that are firstly threaten and punish and then try to reason from a better society point of view. I agree with you that it all kicked off to protect property but society has developed to the point where force is used to do all sorts of other things like steal other people’s countries or punish the Ashers. But man is basically selfish, covetous and forceful. Religions are an attempt to guide society because society prefers evolution to revolution and the status quo seems to be the safest bet. I have to disagree with you about which came first. The God came first and he must be obeyed (via. his reps of course) and then we worked back from the answer. You can’t knock a stable society and a combination of church, law and education has been up until now the best combination.
Well there’s where we’ll disagree, fiosrach. In your worldview , you’re making no allowance as to how man as a creature evolved since the last Ice Age and how societies developed from small beginnings until the present day.It is known , for example that we carry the DNA of both Neanderthals and Denisovans which weren’t actually homo-sapiens…(ie humans) . We can speculate whether or not on whether god has a place for these two species of hominids in an afterlife too or even why they were allowed to be killed -off .We can ask whether these near-humans had “souls” and whether or not our other realtives such as the large family of apes or indeed every other creature which shares part of our DNA will also be resurrected and provided with an afterlife experience along with us humans…or you could speculate that we just made that bit up because we were great storytellers and still are.Religions might well be a control mechanism to frighten humans to behave because of the fear of an ultimate father but that in itself does not make the story true.”His representatives” added a lot of magic to frighten the listeners and to make the story a little bit more magical and other-worldly , but that does not make it true either. That’s not to say that religions can help in part to stabilise some societies, but again , that does not make them any truer .Now education….! That’ s another ball of wax altogether, fiosrach…but it is the ultimate Tree Of Forbidden Knowledge , isn’t it? Don’t pluck at any of those shiny arguments!
Harry, I think you’re being a wee bit dishonest. Leave religion out of it. Would you have survived in a dog eat dog social structure? No because you weren’t a good runner, you hadn’t 20-20 vision, you weren’t aggressive enough. You couldn’t bring home the bacon and if you did manage it then it would be stolen from you. You are happy enough to live safely in this society, built over millennia, yet you snipe from the sidelines. You are biting the hand that feeds you. A bit like all these creatures who crawl out from under the stones to rant and rave about politics etc when they spent the troubles well hidden away. I don’t include you in that dishonesty.
Wow !!!….that’s strong talk from you fiosrach.I’m almost, but not quite insulted .You wouldn’t be trolling , would you ? You see the fact is that although none of us are perfect in every physical , emotional or mental way, we are the ones that actually survived ….Yes …even you , fiosrach!! We are the survivors whose genes, no matter how impaired , have arrived right down through the millennia to the 21st century. Nothing , so far ,has killed you and me yet and both our lines have survived to the present day.In fact I’ve even bred a few new versions of myself and sent them into the future and they are busily producing grandchildren to keep up the good work of their genetic ancestors when I’m gone . ..So …for you and me , fiosrach, with all our faults , with a bit of ducking and diving , skill, mighty intelligence and pure resourceful guile, we are the ones that rose to the top of the heap to live and crow. Yes the old legs mightn’t carry us faster than that other sprightly cove who could chase down game… .Our eyesight might have let us down …and doesn’t everyone’s at some stage ….? the old back might not have been as strong as that big bugger who died young from a heart attack….but ….hey ! …there’s something in us that survived them all down through thousands of years of time .
In the end , fiosrach , my ancestors(and yours too) really did bring home the bacon or I wouldn’t be here at all.maybe that’s because we were a big part of devising society in that way.
You make my point for me,Harry. Had it not been for a relatively stable society you and me probably would not have made it. Yet you, for some reason, can bask in a safe society yet still take potshots knowing it is now safe to do so. And I can still spot a rabbit at 1000 yds and outrun a deer and if I thought you had a stash of Malbec hidden in the house me and my tribe would be round.
Yep…but the lot of you wouldn’t be able to figure out how ro open the bottles…ha ha!
“day.It is known , for example that we carry the DNA of both Neanderthals and Denisovans which weren’t actually homo-sapiens…(ie humans) .”
Its important to remember Evolution is a theory. It has never been proven. Evolution, though still a theory, has been accepted (in ways) by the Catholic Church and some other religions. Charles Darwin himself and his wife remained Christians even after publishing the Origin of the Species.
I personally am not interested in “Life”, biological or anything else. I’m interested in Existence and its Origin. Even without Life, Existence would still Exist. Will Science ever reveal the mysteries of Life or Existence?, more likely not. We regard our scientists as some sort of “all knowing experts” while in reality most of what they have is theories. Back in the 1800’s if you were ill we now know the worst thing you could’ve did was go to a doctor but yet back then doctors were viewed as “experts”. We still view our doctors and scientists in the same way today. After all the multiple billions put into Cancer research, we still don’t have a cure. After all the decades of research and billions in investment we have only viewed less than 10% of the entire universe. Back in the 1950’s people believed we would have bases on Mars, the Moon and even further afield by the year 2001…..in 2016 we still cant even land a man on Mars and more likely still wont by 2030, despite the hype, never mind live on Mars. They believed there would be flying cars, pill form meals and most diseases will have been cured too…..
My point is we have no idea what happened in the past and we are no where near as knowledgeable as we think we are. To sit back and pretend you have all the answers is just nonsense. All that people have today, especially in regard to the Origin of Life and the Universe, is: Theories.
Ps Ryan…the notion that we carry the DNA in our genetic make -up is not “some theory of evolution”. It is a known and provable fact. The DNA is there and traceable in a large proportion of the modern human race. It’s right in front of our eyes, if you like…and easily seen and recorded..The full genomes of the two species concluded that most Europeans and Asians have between 1 to 4 percent Neanderthal DNA. Indigenous sub-Saharan Africans have no Neanderthal DNA at all because their specific ancestors did not migrate through Eurasia and therefore did not actually meet the neanderthals who had already developed independently in the colder north and had become acclimatised to the cold.
” Your argument centres on the idea that there would be a moral vacuum without a religious belief . There can be a moral vacuum with or without religion. You might as well say that atheistd do nothing but go around breaking the laws every day because they think they will not be punished in an afterlife”
Paddy, many Atheists agree that religion was “justified” because it brought Law and Order, even Civilisation. As a Catholic myself I believe in God and don’t see Catholicism as a construction of man, though Catholicism (like all religions) has certainly been influenced by man, even Christ himself found that out, ref: Pharisee’s.
In regard to Atheists, some of the worst people in history have been Atheists. Joseph Stalin is the most notable one. Mao Zedong is another. Stalin is estimated to have been responsible for the murder of 80 million people. Mao Zedong is estimated to be responsible for the murder of 50 million people. Both pursued Atheist policies and indeed founded the very first Atheist states (Soviet Union and Communist China). All those deaths all happened within the first 60 years of the 20th century.
Of course you could point to the wrongs committed by Christianity but its estimated Christianity has been responsible for the murder/deaths of 25 million people over its entire 2000 year History. Far too many, I agree but that’s been eclipsed by Atheist states already and that’s over just a 50 year span. Islam has been responsible for an estimated 300 million murders/deaths, a lot of this is due to Islamic wars against Christians/Non Believers in the East and the Arab Slave Trade which ran for 1200 years (Saudi Arabia only outlawed Slavery in 1960…). Only Muslims can answer for those statistics.
Our society currently is following a very secular and atheist path and the result is a more and more unstable and unhappy society. Our society is rotten, basically. Abortion, collapse of community, obsession with Money and “Celebrity”, the breakdown of the family, selfishness, etc the secularist society has helped bring all these things about. I’m not calling for a religious state but if our people don’t have decent values/principles then our society will collapse, I’m in no doubt about that. Can Atheism sustain a society? Well, we saw how long the very first Atheist country lasted, the Soviet Union lasted just 73 years before it collapsed into dust…..I’m in no doubt the secular democracies in the West will do the same in time.
How is Catholicism not a construction of man?
I cannot believe that anyone believes that religion is anything other than a construction of man. No matter how far back you care to go , you ‘ll end up with the same scenario. Mankind wondering what this world is all about and then inventing stories to suit his imagination. How else could it be? The alternative is to believe that a few “special” people were contacted by another presence beyond their friends and families and told another story concerning events beyond themselves.That sounds a bit like mental illness manifesting in an individual.
Now how feasible is that? What that is ….is science fiction.it’s not much different to that religion that “Scientologist” SF writer Ron L.Hubbard dreamed up in the 1950’s or the Superman myth which was based on Jewish stories about Moses. That’s not to say that these are not great inventive stories or that religion at times has not been a boon to certain societies when used with sensitivity.To claim that it is absolutely the truth could never be verified. On the other hand , we do know a lot about life on earth and it is backed up with evidence. Sure ,there are missing pieces to the jigsaw but time continues to reveal something new on a regular basis and it is all in the public record. Cancer will eventually be cracked and cured .i was a teenager when Barnard did the first heart-transplant…placing one dead human being’s heart into the chest cavity of another human being and jolting it to life with electricity. These things take time, but now we are on the verge of 3-d printing bones from T-cells and learning how to re-build human organs . None of this is a magical process .it is the simple accumulation of knowledge.
There’s much to talk about and how much knowledge we have or haven’t accrued and how much we still do not know and are yet to know; for all of that we’ve come a long way in a mere few centuries…. but let’s take the idea of how “civilisation”, as we know it now really developed. It was more to do with trade, acquisition,greed and expansion than any other factors. Nations wanted wealth…or rather , kings wanted wealth. Religion was spread too …sometimes with a very heavy hand …to the detriment of other cultures….and of course one theory quickly subsumed another as various believers of a variety of beliefs, spread throughout the world. It doesn’t follow that it is necessary to have an other-wordly belief to have a stable world, though.We haven’t got a stable world even now and religious beliefs are at the core of much of the violent thinking that is currently driving that violence. Rather that we had a solid set of civic laws to protect everyone without favour …taught and applied from the schoolroom to the grave and religion or lack of was left to individuals to believe or not.
The only real argument i can see for a belief in something completely unprovable such as the existence of a god, is that it is an insurance policy that is never cashed in .Believe ….just in case. The alternative thought process is a conviction that it is only a story, told to frighten and there is nothing at all to worry about after death.
“We still view our doctors and scientists in the same way today. After all the multiple billions put into Cancer research, we still don’t have a cure.”
I was beginning to warm to you Ryan, but……
“Stalin is estimated to have been responsible for the murder of 80 million”
……you go and let yourself down with this statement. Remember not all we were taught at school is true.
Jude
You are on the same side as the DUP on this issue
You are on the same side as the DUP and far right Christian groups on abortion.
You are on the same side as the Daily Mail on what you would call the PC brigade.
Has it ever occurred to you that you may not be as left wing as you thought you were?
Regarding Ashers I have to admit to a tiny smidgen of sympathy for them even though I think this was the correct decision.
I don’t share paddy’s view that principles have to meet his test of not being nonsense.
People are entitled to believe whatever they want and hold principles based on those beliefs.
However if they want to take part in society in business or socially they have to follow the rules even if their principles are compromised.
It could be against my principles to drive on the left side of the road (as left is of the devil) but I should not put that principle into action on the roads.The correct thing would be for me not to drive at all.
For Ashers, if they had displayed a sign saying ‘we cannot provide any slogans of a political or religious nature’ or something like that,they may have been ok.
Believe it or not gio , I agree with much of what you say , but i do have problems with fantastical beliefs which you personally interpret as ..
.”People are entitled to believe whatever they want and hold principles based on those beliefs.
However if they want to take part in society in business or socially they have to follow the rules even if their principles are compromised.”…
TI totally agree, but to me that’s simply like me saying that people are entitled to believe any damn thing they please , just so long as they keep it inside their brain when dealing with the real world…. and especially when that belief breaks the law. …as this belief did, let’s not forget! ….I really don’t think you can have it both ways and each have a special clause in the law which allows you, personally to break it like a bag of pick -and- mix. As you imply yourself ….why shouldn’t I be allowed to drive on the wrong side of the road …or use my mobile phone when I’m driving? Surely that ‘s my business and nobody else’s?…Well …no …it isn’t, i’m afraid…
paddy
I think you are actually agreeing with me.
Not only are people entitled to believe whatever damn thing they please,there is no way we could stop them even if we wanted to.
But somewhere between active discrimination, and being required to produce stuff that clashes with your beliefs, is the small area where my sympathy arises.
I think the judgement is right but I can’t help wondering if it was a defendant that you (and I) were a bit more amenable to,would we not be admiring them for standing by a principle?
Not only that but their scones are quite tasty.
Oh, I perfectly understand that and I’ve no doubt that the bakery is a very fine one.I think they have been almost childishly naieve ,though. It’s written right across their young faces that they barely understand what is happening to them.. Someone with a bit more nous and maybe a bit of wisdom should have steered them away from this particular cliff-edge…given that the plot thickened over a weekend, as has been mentioned and there was ample time to work out a solution..It was a non-starter and I think they have been used by their own supporters within their church and politics as some kind of sacrificial “holy fools”, if you like , or scapegoats, to make a point that was basically untenable within law….as it eventually panned out to quite some cost tothemselves.It’s hard to argue that they made a huge mistake when the result of their actions is now common- knowledge.
You say “fantastical” beliefs,PaddyK,in relation to the views of the people of Faith but how do you account for the origins of the universe and indeed the why and wherefore of our existence as a human race? Science has not come anywhere near to explaining those fundamental questions and people who follow atheism can only believe in a limited, materialistic view of the Cosmos and our place in it, emptied of their spiritual significance. The explanation of Thomas Aquinas, i.e. the “Uncaused Cause”, namely God the Creator of us all, has never been bettered.
I’m with the Ashers on their right to uphold their personal beliefs in a public capacity regarding the definition of marriage as consisting of the sacred union between a man and a woman. A properly functioning democracy would’ve recognized this and not have resorted to a show trial to penalize them. Their position is a perfectly coherent and valid one but perhaps they should have emphasized more the “Christian” nature of their business and this would’ve helped to steer them clear of the pitfalls which confronted them.
I find myself in a similar position to Jude, I wish people would be more honest and just say what they really think. Most people who oppose same sex relationships do so because they consider sex between two men (and presumably women…) to be disgusting. God doesn`t really come into the equation, marriage was not `invented` by the Almighty. It is all a case of physical squelching and squirming, hairy men getting it on. Personally I think people should be allowed to do whatever they want as long as they do it in private. Ashers were an easy target, how about going to a Muslim bakery next time and see where that leads us.
i wish people would be more honest and just say what they really think……………
you cant do that anymore with the dogooder squad watching,reporting to cops ect.everyday language most people i know use is unacceptable on most sites.lol except the building site.
anyway who pays the legal bill in this farce.
“anyway who pays the legal bill in this farce”
Ashers themselves I believe billy and it wouldn’t have been cheap, you can be sure of that. The Equality Commission brought the case against them. I fully support the Equality Commission, we certainly need it here but in this case I think they were in the wrong slightly. I understand gay people need protecting in our society but this case shows its a balance of rights.
I think the Christian Institute may have been supporting the Ashers.
I think most observers here are right it is not a “Christian” business it is a business to serve the whole community and it was not asked to adorn the cake with a message which is offensive to anyone such as “F**K The Pope”.
If the request had been offensive most people I am sure might have sided with the Ashers.
The truth is Ashers and their supporters do not just disagree with gay marriage, they find it offensive and a perversion and sin. While they are entitled to hold these beliefs they are not entitled to act on them to the detriment of other human beings!
The cake used the phrase ”Queer Space”. I would have refused to make it for that choice of derogatory language. Problem solved.
If Ashers bakery had made its decision on the instant this would be a cut and dried case. You might not like their strange ‘principles’ but at least they’d be straightforward. Ashers took this order on Friday afternoon and refused it on Monday morning.
So what went on? One can only assume the matter came up for discussion in their church. The bakers were convinced, or browbeaten, into refusing the job – in clear breach of contract. The ‘principle’ argument sees to have been mobilised after the matter became public knowledge.
I have no problem with fundamentalist Christian principles (apart from its seeming sex-obsession), but it is interesting that they are usually aimed at minorities, Blacks / African-Americans (& -Caribbeans), LGBTs, ‘Taigs’, ‘tinkers’, ‘immigrants’ and now ‘asylum-seekers’.
The Ashers Case, Esteemed Blogmeister, is yet another in a long, long list of, erm, cake-up calls as to the lie of the right-on rights land, going forward.
As long as Sesame Street itself, which started in 1969 and has been stretching onwards, interminably, ever since. At one time it morphed after a fashion into an adult version of a kids show, the Muppet Show.
The two outstanding characters here where that hilarious pair of professional hecklers, Statler and Waldorf. This duo of cantankerous old codgers, from their permanent seats in the plush box above the stage, made d. sure than no turn was left unstoned, no matter how awful it was. Truly, were they the re-incarnation of Dr. Heckyl and Mr. Snide.
They were named after/for two landmark hotels in New Yawk: the Statler Hilton and the Waldorf-Astoria. One mentions this because back in the Fabulous Fifties on Liffeyside, Dublin too had its own Statler and Waldorf:
-Hilton Edwards and Dr. Michael Mac Liammoir, a stoir.
This pair of immigrants from England also spent their life in the theatre. With this notable difference: they colonized the stage and the Gate, while it doesn’t even have a balcony, much less a box, did have its fair share of hecklers. Or, rather, would be hecklers.
Because of the excellence of the dramatic fare on offer, however, they didn’t have much outlet for their heckling skills, oops, skillset to be exercised. Thus, they were reduced to the role of the Humming and Hawing Chorus in Miss Caterpillar:
-Il Coro a bocca chiusa.
Any heckling to be done was done by the pair who provided the excellent fare. On one infamous occasion they opted to heckle the dingbats of Dublin City Council. This was the result of a peremptory order to the Gate directors to remove the bilingual signs which they had attached to the rest rooms of the theatre:
-Men/Fir. Women/Mna.
Never had such an outlandish idea as having signs in Leprechaun on a Lavatory door been floated before: to the Municipal Microbes in their pompous robes peculiar to asinine Aldermanhood this idea was about as attractive as, erm, a floating turd in a toilet bowl .
Little wonder that the vernacular for the lavatory in Leprechaun is:
-Teach an Asail (The House of the Ass).
Drawing on all his various calligraphic and linguistic talents , MacLiammoir responded by painting the original offending sign in eight different languages, including Chinese, though it might well have been in Japanese itself (see Miss Caterpillar above).
Not having darkened the gates of the Gate in almost as long a time as its current incumbent Pooh-bah has been in situ, one somehow doubts if the bilingually signed doors of the jax and jills are still in situ. One just doesn’t get to be a Pat who gets a pat on the back with an honorary OBE for such parochial blaggardism from Mrs. Obi Wan-Kenobi in whose gift the bestowing of such baubles lies.
The point being that Micheal was Gaelic as well as gay in a time when the public demonstration of both states was frowned upon in the Free Southern Stateen. For only one of those states does a Liffeyside citizen get the chivy treatment, these days. But which one? Ah, there’s the rub.
Herebe some hint-haunted lines:
Back in the Fabulous Fifties, when Michael Mac Liammoir, kept his private gay state to himself, and to his, erm, nearest and dearest, but opted to flaunt his public Gaelic state (see public toilet above) two elements were noticeable by their presence on the streets of Dublin and which are just as evident by their absence today:
-horse-drawn traffic and the Fainne, which was a ring worn on the lapel of a citizen to show he was happy to converse in Erse with anybody so inclined.
In the enlightened 20I6, and on the correct political front, the current Minister for Children is a vaunting Lesbian a, fait accompli which has not raised as much as a taunt from the current pair of hecklers in the corporate box of the Muppet Media:
-Cookie Monster and Miss Piggy.
Contrast this with an interview conducted as long ago as this morning on RTE. The topic was the mooted visit by Old Red Sox to the stateen south of the Black Sow’s Dyke on the occasion of Family Week 2018. The following umbrage was voiced by the station of the nation’s interviewer:
-But, but, what’s a celibate old man doing at a (gasp) Family Week ?
Oh, and btw, the current fav to be the next Prime Minister is one who is MD of Too Much Information Services.
The same numerate Knight of the Calcutator who, last year, carried to another interview on RTE, the verbal equivalent of this gratuitous placard:
-By the way, I am not straight.
The Great Shakes put the following rhetorical question into the mouth of Sir Toby in ‘Twelfth Night’:
-Dost thou think because thou are virtuous, Malvolio, there shall be no more cakes and ale?
For Malvolio read the prototype Muppet of the Monomouthed Media in DOBland. He/She is given to dressing in rainbow colours, with perhaps her/his most fetching feature of unisex wear/ malwear being the cross-gartered yellow stockings. He/she is a pure-of-heart Puritan who only allows (gasp) cakes but no (gulp) ailing language. In a slogan:
-Gay, but not Gaelic.
Cead Mile Failte then to the Gate of the ‘ English-only speaking country in the EU’ !.
A Lyric for a Duet on Same Sex Marriage –
Spouse 1
“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways”
Spouse 2
“Er, um, there’s the Missionary Position ?”
That, I’m afraid, is it.
Does the cake breach copyright law?
If you need to know, see cake law for apple torts.
Allowing for a so called conscious clause would make equality legislation completely useless. I’m not sure your comparison of baking a cake with FTP stands up either – such a request could be breaking the law under incitement etc
Ashers are not a Christian bakery – they are a business ran for nothing only profit and need to comply with the law just as much as amazon or apple.
“Paul Givan, God between us and all harm, sides with the Ashers Bakery people. So, gritting my teeth and wincing a little, do I”
It says a lot about Paul Givan and the DUP/UUP that so many people, specifically Catholics, are very reluctant to agree on a position because the DUP/UUP support that same position. I side with Ashers in this case, I don’t believe they were discriminating but simply did not want to promote gay marriage due to their religious beliefs but it is a very tricky case.
It would’ve definitely have been discrimination if Ashers refused to serve a person because they were gay. But, as one person said, if Ashers had won this case, could a Bed and Breakfast run by a Muslim couple refuse to allow a gay couple to stay in their B & B? The Muslim couple could say it goes against their religious beliefs to have two men sharing a bed under their roof….The Ashers case, if they had won, opens up a whole Pandora’s box. Many people who DO want to discriminate could quote Ashers case in order to do so in some instances, just like the hypothetical Muslim couple. They could say they have strong religious or political beliefs in order to deny certain people a service.
““The fact that a baker provides a cake for a particular team or portrays witches on a Halloween cake does not indicate any support for either.””
That’s very interesting. An interesting question: does Ashers bake Halloween cakes or buns? By Ashers own logic, that could be interpreted as supporting witchcraft. But of course Ashers could say the gay cake was specifically supporting gay marriage, Halloween cakes do not specifically support witchcraft. Of course Halloween cakes don’t support witchcraft at all, its simply a cultural theme. All the people who dress up for Halloween hardly practice witchcraft. There was a pastor from Derry last year who urged people not to support Halloween because in his view it IS witchcraft but he’s obviously taking it far too seriously.
“Would I be happy to produce a cake stating “Fuck the Pope” or “Croppies Lie Down”? ”
You wouldn’t have to Jude because there are Laws against sectarianism, so you could legally turn away customers who wanted such cakes.
As I said, its a very tricky case this, its a balance of rights. Ashers has now implemented a policy of not doing political messages on cakes for anyone, maybe they should’ve just did that from the beginning instead of wasting thousands on a failed court appeal….
The very photogenic young couple associated with this case are not being compromised at all. It is not about them or their sincerely held, however outdated, beliefs,
which the law allows them to hold. They are not the owners of the bakery; it is a company. A publicly registered company is not allowed to discriminate. But even as a company it could have avoided this debacle. Had the company announced it would not allow ANY political or religious slogans to appear on its merchandise it could not have been found guilty of discrimination. it did not avail of that choice.
And so it has to take the consequences. So I have been advised by a very astute and experienced barrister.
You describe the beliefs of the Ashers somewhat disparagingly as “outdated”, Brian, but they are about 2 millennia old or more old and are as relevant today as ever. Truth is eternal no matter when it is quoted. I suppose your yard-stick for measuring the relevance of a belief/ideology is how “modern” or “progressive” it is. But people say the same about the abortion or euthanasia debates but the moral truths about those evil ideologies are not dependent on how long they have been around but rather on their applicability to every age and context.