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Topic: A Belfast cake and queers care arrogance (Read 22736 times)

A Belfast cake and queers care arrogance

A Christian couple over in Belfast runs a bakery business and has 4 shops. They make large cakes for special occasions but refused to make one with 2 cartoon figures on it and a message for a campaign to support same sex marriage (such a law has been voted down over there so far). Now the couple have been reported to the Equalities Commission for refusing to make the damn cake.  Now queers are a fact of life and have rights but it seems anyone who doesn't agree with some minority gets the pc brigade  going crackers.  Instead of just going somewhere else the cake wanters as usual try to create mayhem and the baker couple made no great scene but simply refused on their own personal rights and grounds. It is getting to the stage that every minority (like this 2% one) can get fanatical at the least wee thing and the rights of others doesn't count. At the rate things are going we will eventually have a law against offending someone. Humbug comes to mind.
"Quit you like men:be strong"

Re: A Belfast cake and queers care arrogance

Reply #1 –
Would you still cheer them on of the couple they refused service to was black instead? Or scottish? :rolleyes:
Humbug comes to mind.

Re: A Belfast cake and queers care arrogance

Reply #2 –
Or ex-colonist? Or Orange?

Re: A Belfast cake and queers care arrogance

Reply #3 –
In these cases, both sides tend to go overboard. In the US, we had same-sex couples sue the bakeries. The proper response is to say "Fuck you too" and tell sympathetic people to not patronize the shop. Then the religious hastily craft poorly thought out legislation that allows for religious discrimination. Find a passage in the Bible, Quran, etc and you can discriminate based on it. Talk about opening a Pandora's Box.

I tend to think the marketplace will sort this out. If a place gets reputation for discrimination, they'll get fewer customers and be forced to close. Sure, there might be a big push by some churches to patronize the place, but that can't be maintained indefinitely.

But why is it that certain Christians seem to be more obsessed with homosexuality then 99% of the queers themselves are? Jesus had a good message, but the political Christians seem to overlook everything he said, and focus on a few passages ripped completely out of the context of their time and place, not to mention all the surrounding passages (OT, a bunch of religious laws about not eating shellfish, having clothes made of two difference fabrics and other stuff non-sensible in today's world; NT in Roman's it's clear something else besides modern homosexuality was occurring, most likely a pagan fertility ritual or temple prostitution, Corinthians:ancient Greek had different word for homosexual than the one Paul choose.)

Re: A Belfast cake and queers care arrogance

Reply #4 –
Not humbug macallan and i bow to your long experience in that corner.

As ithappens, queers are protected by law like any other group or minority but they tend to be more militant in their attitude via their organisations. The cake was part of a campaign as I pointed out so if you are mounting a campaign one is equally entitled to object to it so the couple are exercising their rights too. The other stuff you come out with is codswallop. If someone was a democratically inclined person and ran a bakery and a customer wanted a cake to push Communism or Fascism I can see where the owner might feel obliged to stand back.

This couple were not aggressive they just stated their view and faith and are we to expect the queer minority to have more rights than others?  The customer in this case could have objected and had their moan then went somewhere else. Equally Northern Ireland has not passed any new law like the rest of the country so that adds to the matter. It is over the top stuff by the complainer.
"Quit you like men:be strong"

Re: A Belfast cake and queers care arrogance

Reply #5 –
Do tell us how queers somehow have more rights than others this time, Howie. If the bigotted bakers are allow to discriminate against Blacks and Asians, but not homosexuals that would be the case. However, I don't think it is somehow. The came that LGBT people have more rights than other minorities is patently absurd. In the US, it's nearly universal that you can discriminate in hiring based on race/ethnicity or gender by law, but in many (if not most) places you can based sexual orientation. Maybe on Planet Howie, LGBT people have more rights than other minorities, but here on Earth that claim is laughable and easily shown to be false.

Re: A Belfast cake and queers care arrogance

Reply #6 –
What silliness are you sputing now? The couple who own the 4 shops don't discriminate against blacks or anyone, etc so don't throw that nonsense into the equation. Queers are amongst the most vociferous minorities and parade in the streets annually and can wax lyrical about their stance. Can I remind you yet again and the other small minded so-called open-minds that the couple are not in your face people at all. We always get this rubbish every time the queers do not get what they want. And another reminder that the cake was for a "campaign lettered project."  Indeed, i did point out that the new laws for queers in Scotland, England, Wales do NOT include Ulster where the Assembly has discussed this and did not repeal as on the mainland. In turn the cake was to indicate a political stance. Obviously the couple did not agree with the stance and therefore on the side of the N. Ireland Assembly! It is all as plain as the nose on the face syndrome. So as I pointed out it was a reaction to the opiniated  project which kind of changes the situation.

As always here we get the knee-jerk baloney when no-one was waging a damn war aginst queers. They can have their campaign  but equally those that do not agree with it have their rights too and what is the Equality Commission going to do? it cannot to my mind go against the local parliament in NI.
"Quit you like men:be strong"

Re: A Belfast cake and queers care arrogance

Reply #7 –
Is there an article or something? People report things every day. It's hardly mayhem. In fact having a commission to report to is the opposite of mayhem. Bit of an ordered dispute really. The Commission is no doubt in place to mediate such things. Who has blown this out of proportion isn't clear, as you've jumped to your own conclusion seemingly before a decision has been reached.  

Re: A Belfast cake and queers care arrogance

Reply #8 –
Quote from: rjhowie on

Not humbug macallan and i bow to your long experience in that corner.
...
This couple were not aggressive they just stated their view and faith and are we to expect the queer minority to have more rights than others?

So, somehow, having the same rights as everyone else is having more rights than everyone else when you're queer? Yup, humbug.

Re: A Belfast cake and queers care arrogance

Reply #9 –
Quote from: rjhowie on

What silliness are you sputing now? The couple who own the 4 shops don't discriminate against blacks or anyone, etc so don't throw that nonsense into the equation.

But they do disctiminate against queers, which is different how exactly? :rolleyes:

Quote from: rjhowie on

Queers are amongst the most vociferous minorities and parade in the streets annually and can wax lyrical about their stance. Can I remind you yet again and the other small minded so-called open-minds that the couple are not in your face people at all.

Irrelevant rubbish.

Quote from: rjhowie on

We always get this rubbish every time the queers do not get what they want.

Because some jackass thinks discriminating against them is just fine & dandy? Oh the horror :rolleyes:
Now where are all those extra rights your lot claims they have?

Re: A Belfast cake and queers care arrogance

Reply #10 –
Firstl ensbb3, it was reprted by the BBC and on their telext.

As for the usal smart alecs here - on subjects such as queers and i mention macallan and Sanguinemoon as typical (!) this tripe about persecution of them is pointless. They have well financed organisations - eg. Stonewall the leading one and others. In show business they are treated like heroes are ably illustrated in the media as in a similar fashion. Here is Scotland the Scottish Parliament has a committee structure where the public can right in or supply petitions. Recently the Nationalist regime  happily accepted 20,000 people who sent in their support for the independence Yes campaign and that was treated as a brilliant thing. However when people sent on over 50,000 against the intention to allow queer marriages that was ignored. So the liberal agenda is  hardly one of well, open minds at all. Instead here in this thread core matters are being suitably ignored. Poof marriage is not allowed in Northern Ireland even after repeated raising of it in the Assembly.

So as i pointed out as simply as i could knowing that macallan and Sanguinemoon would ignore what didn't suit one has to wionder about their intelligence not mine. If someone wants a cake design on a campaign issue that is a point of view is it not? Therefore anyone who has a different point of view (which also agrees with what the local parliament has decided) that is fair enough. Do try and see that matter instead of dodging the issue. In simple terms the bakers are on the side of the Stormont Assemby and the cake wanter on the other side so fair enough I reckon.
"Quit you like men:be strong"

Re: A Belfast cake and queers care arrogance

Reply #11 –
Quote from: rjhowie on

the usual drivel

You still didn't tell us which special rights they supposedly have, why you think discriminating against them is ok and how on earth equal rights are somehow special when you're queer.
No, more waffling about how they make you feel uncomfortable by existing won't help.

Re: A Belfast cake and queers care arrogance

Reply #12 –
I wonder if it even occurs to these bakers and their American counterparts that far from taking a principled stance, they're actually making their side look petty and vindictive. In America equal protection under the law was written into the Constitution from the beginning, and now that it's being enforced we have a few "Christian" bakers protesting by refusing to bake a cake. What's that supposed to accomplish?

Indeed, the  overall the damage the fundamentalist Christians have done to their cause greatly exceeds that the queers have done. Want proof? Why is that same-sex marriage is the law in a growing number of states? Because the fundies couldn't be satisfied with it merely being illegal, they had to push of constitutional amendments against it - amendments even conservative judges had to throw out based on the Equal Protection clause of the Federal Constitution. Why is there's a LGBT rights movement in the first place? Because queers were being harassed, discriminated against, police raiding their meeting places even though they just trying to have beer at the bar. Karma's a bitch.

Re: A Belfast cake and queers care arrogance

Reply #13 –
Leaving aside the self-aggrandisement of Macallan as is his style I would say Sanguinemoon that is a point of view you express but has to be thought about more widely. I remember cases such as the following.

The elderly couple who on visiting their Local Towbn Council offices noticed a leafet from some queer group amongst the others on display. In turn they asked if they could put up one from their own religious background opposing the stance. They did so quite normally and without any in-you-face reaction. However the outcome was a visit some time later by two policemen who spent an hour (!) haranguing them. It was upsetting but they did subsequently put in an official complaint which surprise, surprise, was upheld for them. Follow this by another Christian couple who ran a guest house fromtheir home. On finding 2 possible visitors were queer they said they could not accept them. In turn the 2 men concerned took action against them by suing the husband and wife.  They argues that it was still their home and they should determine who could stay and they lost! This Belfast incident is much in the same truck as these and others and as queers tend to instantly get nippier than other groups much bother caused. The liberal mind is selective however as recently again a home-owner advertised for a tenant staying publicly the enquirer "had to be Pakistani." (!). Although an illegality so far they have got way with that.

For me, i ddin't have a problem with minorities having the same rights as the majority but at the samee time it seems the majority is increasingly less likely to have the same freedoms. Indeed much of the liberal mind which is of course meant to be ;liberal' often shows more antagonism than those they would condemn. On the Belfast matter I notice that the answers here have totally ignored the fact that the cake was to have a campaign slogan which adds a different slant to the matter. So of you do not agree with the campaign intention you have no right to your stance?  In addition the campaign lost the vote in the Northern Ireland Assembly so  adds yet another dimension which too is being subtly passed by here.  Queers can of course queer away whilst at the same time those that do not agree with their pursuit equally are entitled to a view that is contradictory. So in the end it was a campaign cake and therefore open house on alternative opinions.
"Quit you like men:be strong"

Re: A Belfast cake and queers care arrogance

Reply #14 –
Quote from: rjhowie on
The elderly couple who on visiting their Local Towbn Council offices noticed a leafet from some queer group amongst the others on display.

Their opinion is well represented without direct opposition via a hate leaflet. "Elderly couples" tend to be bigoted.
  
Quote from: rjhowie on
Follow this by another Christian couple who ran a guest house fromtheir home. On finding 2 possible visitors were queer they said they could not accept them. In turn the 2 men concerned took action against them by suing the husband and wife.  They argues that it was still their home and they should determine who could stay and they lost!

When you turn your home into a bed and breakfast, or whatever y'all call them, it's no longer just your home. It's now subject to discrimination laws. This is a horrible example of yet more bigotry.

As for the shop owners. While they should have a right to turn down work, they don't have a right to do business in public and discriminate. The moment they made it because they don't agree with gay rights they were wrong. What a stupid and petty reason. It's just a cake.

You would of been right at home with George Wallace standing in the doorway saying they can do what they want as long as they do it somewhere else.

Re: A Belfast cake and queers care arrogance

Reply #15 –
I remember you telling about the leaftlet incident before. How the couple asked is one thing, what the leaflet actually said might be something else entirely. Did it claim all lgbt people are going to hell, although the actual biblical evidence for this is flimsy. The "clubber passages" tend to be mistranslated and/or taken out context, Did the leaftlet suggest "therapy" to change sexual orientation, which psychologist agree causes long term psychological damage. What the leaftlet exactly was about is important. For the police to get involved there had to be more to the story than a Christian couple wanting to place a simple, innocent leaftet. Media outlets like the DM are careful not to let out details like that.

The bigger is picture is what is this obsession in some Christian circles about queers? Christianity devolving religion known for its hang-ups about what happens in other people's bedrooms than anything else.

Re: A Belfast cake and queers care arrogance

Reply #16 –
Yes there will be some Christians who are more in your face however that is not the general case here and it does seem however that the more radical queers have an agenda of their own. I do recall some time ago a well know queer on television criticising some in his own world for their arrogance.
"Quit you like men:be strong"

Re: A Belfast cake and queers care arrogance

Reply #17 –
Quote from: rjhowie on

Yes there will be some Christians who are more in your face however that is not the general case here and it does seem however that the more radical queers have an agenda of their own. I do recall some time ago a well know queer on television criticising some in his own world for their arrogance.

Translation: rjhowie is upset about them damn queers not staying in the closet where they belong so he can't pretend they don't exist.

Re: A Belfast cake and queers care arrogance

Reply #18 –
Picking on the queers is also a cheap political stunt by the GOP. They want to "energize" their base by pushing for some legislation against gays, ie an anti-equal marriage amendment, poorly thought out "religious freedom" bills that effectively allow discrimination if you can find some passage in the Bible to justify it, etc. The sad thing is there doesn't seem to much correlation between the GOP base being "energized" and success in the general election. If anything, there might a negative one. So they kick around the queers basically for nothing.

Then we have the media. There was stink about the CEO of Mozilla stepping down because he supported California's Prop 8 (the anti-same sex marriage amendment in that state.) The media made out that there was this huge boycott by queers against Firefox and we had Christians calling gays bullies. In fact, the biggest boycott by far was by OK Cupid, a dating website run by a heterosexual man. Maybe there were some queers actively boycotting Firefox, but most of us couldn't care less. As I said, the situation with that baker in Belfast mirrors what's happened a couple times in the US. Yes, a couple (well maybe a few times but the incidents are actually rare.) The media makes out that if a baker refuses to make a cake for a same-sex couple, the couple will immediately sue. Probably 99 percent of the time, the gays will just leave and tell their friends not visit that shop. What's missing from the news articles is what exactly happened when the gays did sue. My gut and knowledge of the LGBT community tells it had to be something more than the baker saying "Gay marriage is against our beliefs." Something far uglier must have transpired in the shop, but there's no way for me to prove it.

None of this is to say there aren't radical queers (or any other minority for that matter.) Regardless of the group, even a majority such as Christians, there are individuals that make a big stink out of nothing.

Even so, on the surface it seems that your bakers are in the wrong. If you open your shop to the public, you need to be willing to serve all the public. If we start saying you can refuse service based on some belief, it opens the doors to all sorts of discrimination. People that support bakers refusing to make a cake for a gay couple are only see the one incident and are missing the big picture, which is not a pretty one. By the way, did you know that arguments against gay marriage are the same ones used against interracial ones, including the religious objections?

Re: A Belfast cake and queers care arrogance

Reply #19 –
Every kind of queer configuration doesn't pass as marriage and every kind of weirdness on cake doesn't make it a wedding cake.

Speaking of cakes, I like this one (from 8:30 to the end) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgiqLmzCk0g

Re: A Belfast cake and queers care arrogance

Reply #20 –
So automatiucally every old couple of bigoted? What an over simplified nonsense answer that is! May i remind that they were not aggressive but asked for the right to place a leafelt from their tradtion on the leaflet place? Also, that when the put in an offical complaint on police harassment they received an apology so do try and look more. And on the husband and wife that did bed & breakfast in their home there needs to be a further clarification. On their website they stated for all to see that queer couple would not receive shared rooms and their mistake was not reminding the 2 of that. The case is now going to the Human Rights Court in europe. Now back to the Belfast thingy.

The cake was to be inscribed "Support gay marriage." The couple running the bakery are against queer marriage and as we live in a democracy (I think) they have an equal right of opinion. Today in a national British newspaper - was either the "I" or the London times a queer writer has accused his own side of being deliberately provocative time after time and many would be better being a bit more sensible in their pogroms. That is sensible from a queer protagonist as the militancy he obviously af=grees with me on distantly only raises hackled in opposition. Churches here are quite entitled under law notto have same sex marriage so can we expect yet another pogrom. All of this only emphasises what i have said about being in your face attitudes from queerdom. It is okay for them to have a view but not for anyone opposed to their opinion? Something deeply getting flawed in our supposed democratic tradition! And yet again the Assembly in Belfast rejected queer marriage so the bakery couple are hardly lone antagonisers. They simply disagreed and no doubt another court action by the tyranny of the minorities.
"Quit you like men:be strong"

Re: A Belfast cake and queers care arrogance

Reply #21 –
The "Freedom of Speech" includes, with many other variations, the "Freedom of Expression".

The queers who wanted to express themselves had a right to do so, & so did the bakers, who also have the same rights, expressed themselves by not producing the "Queer Cake".

It's what some might call a 'Mexican Standoff', where both sides have freely expressed themselves in opposite directions, & whereas no party, in short, gained any 'ground', but both freely expressed their prerogatives nevertheless.

As a proper remedy, the queers could have/should have sought out another baker more politically sympathetic to their desire to make their political statement....,.,period.

That said, if the queers further choose to snowball their obvious political bonanza here, they have the right to express their freedom of speech in the public media & the courts........not to force the bakers to make their cake (which never was the goal anyway), but to place their queer agenda into the court of public opinion, a spectacle they will cherish forever.

Whether he realizes it or not, dear ole salty RJ has played right into their political hands......here in DnD.....giving them a forum they could never have dreamt of . 

The bakers, by standing to their principals & expressing their rights, actually might end up having to shit up a rope, but in the end, by all that's good in their personal domain, they won't have to make a limp wristed cake for the queers to ejaculate on then consume -- unless that is --  they choose to submit, reap all the free publicity by doing so, & in the process dash to hell all their principals & rights.  

These bakers may end up losing some patronage, but then again they might as well gain some too.

The only shameful tragedy here would be if Government stood up on one side or the other, rather than declaring a mutual 'draw'.


This is what I wrote in another thread dealing with free speech:

Quote

All speech or expression of idea should be considered soundly protected as free speech until such expression &/or statements are proven to cause serious criminal harm to another, or others, in a manner totally unacceptable by society because it is proven to cause serious criminal harm, & that such harm is subject to penalty via existing law.

What is said or expressed via any medium may be repugnant, unpopular, & despised by the general public, but unless it causes serious criminal harm to society as a whole, those statements & expressions must be permitted in any free & open society, & also protected by law in order to protect those making the statements or expressions in question.......,


Quote
.........Regardless, whether there be a basis in fact or not, speech that is distasteful or insulting, should have no bearing on whether the speaker can or can't exercise it's use under the auspices of freedom of speech protection.

Under the protection of freedom of speech, I could insult anyone I so please, as long as the insults I hurl could not be construed as being directly insightful of physical harm by others upon the individual or individuals I insult.

The same goes for hate speech, which has no actual basis in law & was borne solely out of Political Correctness, that unless the speech was directly attributable to insighting physical violence by others upon the object of the hate speech, such speech should be rightfully protected by freedom of speech in a free & open society.

Never at any cost, within a free & open society, should Political Correctness ever be allowed to trump free speech in any way, manner, or form......


Rock on......                                                


Re: A Belfast cake and queers care arrogance

Reply #22 –
FWIW, I seem to remember a few months back that there was a problem between Chic-Fil-A and the LGBT community. It ended with the LGBTs boycotting for at least a short time, and no discernible difference in the business of selling chicken. Chic-Fil-A did not discriminate either in hiring practice or in serving customers, as far as I know-- it's just that the owners of the outfit actually dared to have a non-PC opinion and they voiced it publicly.

Chic-Fil-A is still in business, if they're in a financial bind because of the boycott it's not so anyone would notice.
What would happen if a large asteroid slammed into the Earth?
According to several tests involving a watermelon and a large hammer, it would be really bad!

Re: A Belfast cake and queers care arrogance

Reply #23 –
It's not a freedom of speech issue. The client requests certain wording and you give it to them. That's the nature of business. If you're doing work for yourself, then it becomes a freedom of speech issue.

All the research points to one conclusion regarding sexual orientation, be heterosexual, gay/lesbian or bisexual, people are born into it and it can't be changed. What's that you say? "Political correctness"  No. Many independent studies that passed peer review. Oh, the researchers' peers were just being politically correct themselves? No. In fact, a counter-researcher trying to disprove that sexual orientation is chosen "behavior" wound up reaching the same conclusion. This is why is immoral to discriminate against the LGBT community. People used to the same arguments to discriminate against blacks, that they were the cursed descendants of Ham (one of Noah's sons.) In the case of both discrimination based on sexual orientation and race, the Bible was merely a whitewash and excuse for bigotry.

Re: A Belfast cake and queers care arrogance

Reply #24 –
Quote from: mjmsprt40 on

FWIW, I seem to remember a few months back that there was a problem between Chic-Fil-A and the LGBT community. It ended with the LGBTs boycotting for at least a short time, and no discernible difference in the business of selling chicken. Chic-Fil-A did not discriminate either in hiring practice or in serving customers, as far as I know-- it's just that the owners of the outfit actually dared to have a non-PC opinion and they voiced it publicly.

Chic-Fil-A is still in business, if they're in a financial bind because of the boycott it's not so anyone would notice.
A few gays boycotted them. I didn't want their greasy chicken anyway, so you can't really say I boycotted. But one group is always boycotting another and it almost never works. Did you hear about the groups trying to boycott General Mills because they offer domestic partnership benefits? It's not hurting General Mills, either. If we're gonna talk about boycotts, it's only fair to point that we  Christian groups trying to boycott companies left and right for exercising the beliefs of the Board and CEO. Remember the Christian groups trying to boycott Disney for hiring out the park to an LGBT group, never mind that they did the same for Christian groups. I daresay there are more silly Christian boycotts going on than gay ones.