Northern Ireland Anti-Marriage Equality Bakery Found Guilty Of Discrimination

I''m actually very disappointed in this ruling:

A Northern Ireland bakery was found guilty Tuesday of discrimination for refusing to make a cake bearing the slogan “Support Gay Marriage,” a verdict welcomed by human rights activists but denounced by Christian conservatives in the British territory.

In her ruling, Belfast Judge Isobel Brownlie called the bakery’s cancellation of the order “direct discrimination for which there can be no justification.” The judge said the bakery was a business, not a religious organization, and therefore had no legal basis to reject an order based on a customer’s sexual orientation or beliefs.

She said the bakers knew the customer, Gareth Lee, was gay and they would have provided him a cake bearing a message that supported traditional heterosexual marriage.

1) Discrimination based on sexual orientation did not occur here. The gay customer was denied one particular service, and it was not because he is gay. Discrimination is about who you serve, not what you serve. A straight customer would have been denied the same cake.

2) This case could help play into the "special rights" bullshit of the Christian right. Why? Because I very much doubt that this man could have sued for discrimination over a denial of the exact same product if he was straight. The judge in the case made a point of noting that the man was gay, but I think that's irrelevant here, because that was not the reason he denied service. It does appear that him being gay led to a ruling in his favor, and that that wouldn't have happened if he was straight. This could give the perception that anti-discirminaiton laws provide special rights to LGBT people, which, when correctly applied, is not true. However, the laws were not correctly applied here.

3) This was a legitimate exercise of freedom of religion and freedom of speech. Denying any cake to a same-sex couple is discrimination, and should be illegal. But this is not that. It involved the construction of an overt political message. People should not be forced to make merchandise to support a political cause that they disagree with.

4) I can easily see this being turned back on us. Azucar Bakery in Colorado has been harassed by Christian anti-LGBT bullies with two separate lawsuits for denying an anti-equality cake. That should not be illegal. That is her freedom of speech. But if we are going to celebrate the ruling against the Ireland bakery, how can we say that Azucar Bakery should not have to do the same thing? What are we going to distinguish the cases on? The message? I hope not. As I've said before, you can't be distinguishing two identical cases on the grounds that you like the message in one but not the other.

5) This is not a good look for us. It will give the appearance that we are intolerant of people who disagree with us. I believe that while some legitimately questionable actions are taken by some LGBT rights supporters from time to time, we are not intolerant overall. But I think this is one of those questionable actions, and I don't want to give the other side any other ammunition for that perception.

I know a lot of people disagree with me, so I'd love to hear your opinion in the comments.