The unanimous decision by the five justices of the Supreme Court on 10 October was greeted as a victory for free speech.
They ruled that Ashers, the Belfast bakery, was not obliged to make a cake emblazoned with the message ‘support gay marriage’. If anyone needed clarification that this case was about a message and not about discriminating against a person, Daniel McArthur of Ashers ended his statement outside the court saying Mr Lee ‘will always be welcome in one of our shops’.
The case started in 2014 when gay rights activist, and regular customer, Gareth Lee placed an order for a cake costing £36.50 with a ‘support gay marriage’ message on it. When two days later Ashers contacted him to refund his money explaining that they could not support that message, he sued the company for discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and political beliefs. After taking Ashers to court, then to appeal, and going to the Supreme Court, the people of Northern Ireland now face a £450,000 legal bill, as Mr Lee’s case was publicly funded by the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland (ECNI). The ECNI said the ruling was a backward step in combating discrimination.
