Europe’s own “gay cake” case is heading the European Court of Human Rights.
In 2014, Gareth Lee, a gay activist with QueerSpace in Belfast, Northern Ireland, paid in full when he ordered a cake for International Day Against Homophobia. Two days later, the bakery informed him that it couldn’t make the cake because it went against the owners’ religious beliefs.
Lee won his case, Lee v. Asher Bakery Company Ltd, when a Belfast court ruled in his favor in 2015. The case then went to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, where the five justices ruled in favor of the bakery owners in October 2018.
The owners, the McArthur family, are evangelical Christians.
The justices found that the bakery owners hadn’t denied making the cake because Lee is gay, but because of the message supporting same-sex marriage on the cake
Last week, Lee’s lawyers filed an appeal with Europe’s highest court.
They are arguing that the Supreme Court “failed to give appropriate weight to Mr. Lee’s rights under the European Convention of Human Rights.”
According to Pink News, the lawyers will challenge the concept that a business can have religious beliefs, not for the owners to have their right to hold private religious and political views.
“There is no such thing as a ‘Christian business’ and we contest that no such thing ought to be given legal recognition by a court,” the lawyers said in a statement.
Lee told reporters that the Supreme Court’s decision sets a “dangerous precedent.”
The so-called gay cake case isn’t about the owners’ religious beliefs and “has never been about” an individual’s beliefs, he said.
“That’s not what my case has ever been about,” he continued. “This is about limited companies being somehow able to pick and choose which customers they will serve. It’s such a dangerous precedent.”
Lee’s attorney, Ciaran Moynagh, one of Northern Ireland’s leading human rights lawyers, expressed concern that last fall’s ruling in the case sends the wrong message to businesses and company shareholders, allowing their “views trump the rights of its customers,” he said.
Moynagh said the court blurred the lines and created legal uncertainty where there needs to be a hard line to protect against discrimination.
Simon Calvert, the deputy director of the Christian Institute, expressed disappointment about the challenge.
“I’m surprised and a little disappointed that anyone would want to overturn a ruling that protects gay business owners from being forced to promote views they don’t share, just as much as it protects Christian business owners,” he said in a statement. “I hope the government will robustly defend the current law.”
The case has cost more than an estimated $600,000 (£500,000) to date, reported the Belfast Telegraph. The case is being funded by the Equality Commission and the Christian Institute.
A date hasn’t been set for a hearing.
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