Christian bakers claim it would be ‘a sin’ to make gay cake in court appeal
Bakery owners who refused to make a ‘gay’ cake has argued in court that it would be ‘sinful’ to do so.
The owners of Ashers Bakery in Belfast were found guilty of unlawful discrimination based on sexual orientation and political or religious grounds, after the company in Newtownabbey, Northern Ireland refused to bake a cake showing the message ‘Support Gay Marriage’ above an image of Sesame Street’s Bert and Ernie.
Despite losing its initial case, the bakery owners are pursuing a legal appeal of the ruling – with financial and legal help from the anti-LGBT Christian Institute.
The McArthur family took their case to the Belfast Court of Appeal today, where they claimed that God considers it a sin to make cakes with pro-gay messages on.
Barrister David Scoffield QC argued: “They could not in conscience provide a product with a message that was inconsistent with their deeply-held religious beliefs in circumstances where the evidence was clear that they believed that to do so would be sinful.”
PinkNews looked through the Bible and couldn’t find any reference to it being a sin to make foodstuffs referencing homosexuality – but we definitely found a whole lot about it being bad to deny services.
The appeal also challenges the grounds for a discrimination case – claiming the alleged discrimination was against the message on the cake, and not the person buying it.
Scoffield argued: “Discrimination must be against the person, not against an idea or an object.”
“A cake cannot have a political opinion or a religious belief, it is a person who can do so.”
According to the Belfast Telegraph, he added: “It makes it extremely difficult for any business such as a printer or someone who, as we have seen in this case, creates T-shirts or creates cakes, to run any kind of bespoke service if faced with the position that someone could come through your door and order something which is clearly objectionable.”
