"Gay wedding cakes" in countries other than the US

In My Humble Opinion
1

In this thread about the baker and the “gay wedding cake” in GD I asked what things were like in other countries besides the US. I got no takers, so let’s give it a try here.

To keep things simple, let’s assume that there is no request for “gay symbols” on the wedding cake. Just a tiered cake, with maybe some flowers or generic wedding stuff and the customers agree to supply the topper (if they want a same sex one). But the baker does know it is for Same Sex Wedding.

Can a baker in your country or province/state within your country legally refuse to comply with the request?

2

And in which countries would the baker be stoned to death for making the cake?

3

In which countries could the baker legally be stoned while he was making the cake! :slight_smile:

4

South Africa: no, the baker would be in clear violation of the Equality Act. For some reason, most of the cases here have been about wedding venues rather than bakers; when the couple chooses to pursue the case, the result is generally a fine and an order to cease discriminating.

5

This is of course an issue which is rapidly changing in Australia, after the success of the recent plebiscite, and the new Marriage Act passed last week.

Under the provisions of the act, the answer seems to be no they can’t

Your local minister or marriage celebrant can refuse to run the ceremony, but the cake-makers have to make cake for everybody.

6

Northern Ireland had a similar scenario in 2015:

The Supreme Court ruled that making a cake with the words ‘support gay marriage’ did not violate religious beliefs.
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7

It’s troubling that someone other than the religious adherent gets to decide what is a religious belief and is not. What if a Christian, atheist or Buddhist judge were to decide that Muslims do not have a religious belief that they cannot eat pork, even though they do?

8

No it would be troubling if a religious adherent got to decide which laws they don’t have to obey.

9

The question is not what is or is not a religious belief. The question is whether it being a religious belief allows them to ignore an otherwise valid law. In the extreme case, even if you genuinely believe that human sacrifice is necessary to ensure a corn harvest (which was a real belief of several tribes in what is now Mexico), you don’t get to ignore the laws against murder.

10

That’s not what they ruled. The ruling was that the bakery couldn’t rely on the religious beliefs of the owners to justify declining to provide a cake with the message “support gay marriage”. The fact that the owners did hold religious beliefs against gay marriage, and the sincerity of those beliefs, were not challenged.

Relevantly to the OP, it wasn’t a wedding cake and there was no actual wedding. The cake was to be served at a party held to mark International Anti-Homophobia Day. Nevertheless the ruling would probably be influential in determining the outcome of a case involving an actual wedding cake.

11

Ministers of religion can decline to celebrate same-sex marriages. However civil celebrants cannot decline to celebrate them, and existing civil celebrants who object to celebrating same-sex weddings need to re-register as “religious marriage celebrants” if they are to avoid being obliged to do so.

12

In Spain there was a case where a restaurant “politely, they were very polite” refused to serve a wedding because it was same-sex (link in Spanish); the issue came up when they were trying to reserve the restaurant. The grooms considering suing but decided not to, opting instead for publicizing the issue. AFAIK, no similar situation has reached the courts.

On one hand, restaurants have reservado el derecho de admisión: they can decide who to admit and not on grounds of “just because”. For a private company it would be illegal to discriminate current or potential employees by reason of sexual orientation, but then, so’s discriminating by sex and excuse me while I crack up…

There are hotels and restaurants which are “same-sex friendly” and equally friendly to anybody else; others where if you’re anything other than a gay male it is made Very Clear that you’re out of place. The situation is basically “ok, some people discriminate their clients; so long as it’s made clear in advance, what-ever”.

13

In the UK, the Equality Act 2010 (covering England, Scotland and Wales) includes sexual orientation as a ‘protected characteristic’. As a service offerer, paid or otherwise, you cannot treat someone worse because of their protected characteristic.

We have had court cases in the past (from memory, a B&B owner who tried to argue that, as the B&B was their own home, they had the right to admit whoever they chose as their guests. The courts disagreed as they ran their home as a business).

So, make the damn cake.

14

Yeah, thats not at all what the ruling in Bull v Hall [2013] UKSC 73. The Court was divided on the issue of whether it was direct discrimination under the EqualityAct (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007(which were then Applicable, not the 2010 Act).

As it is, the issue would be dealt with the Ss 13, 26 and 29 of the Equality Act, and its not quite clear whether the Colorado situation applies and my own guess would be, no.

15

Meanwhile, in Canada, a customer wanted “…basically …a cake that, if you sent it to a country where gay marriage is illegal, they would set it on fire.” And got it. :slight_smile:

16

There are no protected classes? You can refuse to admit black people, or Muslims, or women?

17

So, if I understand this correctly, you cannot deny employment because of sexual orientation, but you can deny service to customers for that reason. Is that right?