Rainbow Project says bakery that wouldn’t make ‘gay marriage’ cake should have apologised
Northern Ireland’s only health project for gay and bisexual men has said the row over the refusal to bake a “gay cake” could have just been settled with an apology.
In July, Asher’s Baking Company – based in Newtownabbey, Northern Ireland – refused the request of a gay rights activist for a cake showing the message ‘Support Gay Marriage’ above an image of Sesame Street’s Bert and Ernie.
The Commission later found that this act broke anti-discrimination laws, and called for the bakery to apologise, but its manager vowed to instead “make a stand”.
John O’Doherty, director of the Rainbow Project, said: “The Equality Commission asked for an apology, they asked for recognition that it wouldn’t happen again.
“There’s going to be a court case around this, and this is going to get a lot more public attention and the discussions that are going to be held are going to be ‘us versus them’ and we have already seen that quite a lot.
“The reality is that we need to address the very serious issues that exist within our society around discrimination.”
