What a court case about a cake says of religious expression and LGBTQ rights in Northern Ireland
In 2014, a Christian-run bakery in Belfast sparked controversy when they refused to make a cake for local gay rights activist Gareth Lee emblazoned with the slogan “Support Gay Marriage”. The owners of Ashers Bakery argued that the slogan contravened their religious beliefs. Mr Lee alleged that the bakery had discriminated against him for his sexual orientation, and thus a seven-year court battle began. Despite a Belfast County Court and Court of Appeal initially ruling in favour of Mr Lee, earlier this year the European Court of Human Rights ruled that his claim was inadmissible, and said they would not reconsider the decision of the UK Supreme Court, which had overturned a £500 damages award imposed on Ashers Bakery in 2018.
The case has sparked outrage from LGBTQ organisations who support Mr Lee’s claims and fear that the UK Supreme Court and ECHR rulings are detrimental for human rights and LGBTQ freedoms in Northern Ireland. On the other hand, religious groups argue that the initial ruling by the Belfast County Court in favour of Mr Lee represented an affront to free religious expression, by suggesting that the bakery should have produced a cake which went against their personal religious beliefs.
The McArthurs – the owners of Ashers Bakery – are evangelical Christians. The main argument employed by those who supported their right to decline making the cake was that the proposed message contravened their political and religious beliefs. In other words, the McArthurs were not discriminating against Mr Lee for being gay, rather they were exercising their right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, by refusing to bake a cake with a message that went against their religion. According to this argument, the McArthurs would have refused to make a cake decorated in the message “Support Gay Marriage” for any customer – regardless of their race, religion, or sexual orientation.
Despite various Northern Irish Christian groups’ claims that the McArthurs’ actions came from a religious opposition to gay marriage rather than homophobia, many gay rights activists have dismissed this as a technicality. When the case was heard at the UK Supreme Court in 2018, the main consideration was whether the McArthurs had refused to make the cake because of Mr Lee’s sexual orientation, or because they disagreed with the message they were being asked to put on it. The Court ultimately ruled in favour of the latter – a decision which the ECHR upheld earlier this year. Many LGBTQ activists were staunchly opposed to the verdict, including Stonewall’s CEO Nancy Kelley, who called it a “backwards step for equality” and said that “no discriminatory behaviour should be held up by equality law”.
It is important to bear in mind that LGBTQ laws have changed significantly since the controversy began in 2014. In 2014, same-sex marriage was not yet legalised in Northern Ireland, and so it was a topic which was seemingly up for debate – especially amongst religious, political and LGBTQ groups. However, same-sex marriage was legalised in Northern Ireland in 2020. One may question if the McArthurs would have won the case if the incident had taken place after the legalisation of gay marriage. In the context of 2014, their refusal to bake the cake may be seen as a more palatable political disagreement, but how we understand other similar cases in the future may differ significantly.
Nevertheless, the Northern Irish political sphere continues to be dominated by religious affiliations and divisions, mainly along Protestant and Catholic lines. Attitudes towards the LGBTQ community in Northern Ireland have traditionally been slower to advance than the rest of the UK. For instance, Northern Ireland was the last region in the UK to decriminalise same-sex activity and the last to legalise same-sex marriage. Most liberalisation of LGBTQ rights in Northern Ireland has been achieved under direct rule by the Government of the United Kingdom rather than through laws passed by the Northern Ireland Assembly. This pattern is mainly due to the dominance of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) under Northern Ireland’s power-sharing system. The DUP is a socially conservative political party with strong links to the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster, and many of its members are evangelical Christians who oppose LGBTQ rights in Northern Ireland and condemn homosexuality. However, attitudes in Northern Ireland appear to be changing following the legalisation of same-sex marriage and the associated liberalisation of LGBTQ rights. For instance, Jeffery Donaldson became the first DUP leader to have an official meeting with an LGBT group after he met with the Rainbow Project in September 2021.
The ‘Gay Cake Case’ is a complicated one. It raises a number of interesting questions that have implications beyond the outcome of this one court ruling in particular. It draws attention to the complex relationship between religious and LGBT rights – and the complications that can arise when the two come into conflict. Would the verdict have been different if a LGBT-owned bakery refused to bake a cake with a religious slogan for an evangelical Christian customer? And, more to the point: should it?
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