GAY TRUTH

When our children were watching Sesame Street one of the regular clips featured the song “ one of these things is not like the others “, training children to look carefully and make distinctions where things are different. In a case involving Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street, the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal has shown that it is not very good at making distinctions between things that are different. The case is Lee v McArthur, McArthur & Ashers Baking Co Ltd [2016] NICA (24 October 2016). (Thanks to the always helpful Law and Religion UK blog for the link to the official report. There is an “official summary” available here which is a bit shorter.) In the decision the Court of Appeal equates the decision of Christian bakers not to supply a cake, the sole purpose of which was to bear a message which they disagreed with on religious grounds, with a decision of a business to discriminate against persons on the grounds of their sexual orientation. In my view they have ...

A brief note about two decisions illustrating radically different approaches to religious freedom developing in the context of laws prohibiting sexual orientation discrimination, both from the United States . One case, Re Klein dba Sweetcakes by Melissa and anor ( Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor and Industries, State of Oregon ; Case Nos 44-14, 45-14; 21 April 2015) is in the “genre” of the wedding industry cases I have previously commented on. The owners of a small-town cake shop were asked to make a wedding cake . When they discovered that this was for a same sex “commitment ceremony” (at the time same sex marriage was not legal in Oregon), they declined on the grounds of their Christian beliefs. Soon word got around, they were besieged by protests and in fact had to shut down their shopfront business. In this decision the Commissioner has ruled, on the basis of a previous finding of liability for sexual orientation discrimination, that they should pay $135,000 in damages...

Polish homosexual activists launched a campaign Let Us Offer Each Other the Sign of Peace. It met with widespread criticism in the Catholic media and a clear response from the Church’s hierarchy. Posters showing a handshake — one hand with a rainbow bracelet symbolizing LGBT people and the other with a rosary on the wrist — were supposed to create a positive message. “However, the campaign could seem innocent only to people who don’t know social context nor global LGBT movement,” Michał Barcikowski from the Christianitas magazine told polskieradio.pl. The vocal and active Campaign Against Homophobia (CAH) organized the campaign. Two other groups — Tolerado, and Faith and Rainbow — joined them. CAH regularly  threatens people with lawsuits and attacks the freedom of belief and religion in courts. Now, in its latest campaign, Let Us Offer Each Other the Sign of Peace, it discusses Christian values and the “necessity of respect.” The organizers wrote on their website that...