This morning, the UK Supreme Court ruled on behalf of Ashers Baking Company, a Christian-run family bakery in Belfast that refused to bake a cake with the message, “Support Gay Marriage.” The court found that its owners, the McArthur family, have the right to refuse to proclaim messages they oppose, as do all UK citizens whether on in favour of or against same-sex marriage. Rev. Richard Turnbull, a trustee of the organization that represented the family, reveals the details and analyzes the ruling in a new essay for Acton’s Religion & Liberty Transatlantic website.
The McArthur family, while relieved, has lost half-a-million pounds in legal fees and four years of their lives in the courts. “The ruling came two days after Brett Kavanaugh was sworn in as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, after a battle that laid bare the cultural and political divide in that country,” Rev. Turnbull wrote. He points out that UK taxpayers were compelled to become partakers in their prosecution, which justices implied, was motivated by anti-religious bias:
Not only did the Equality Commission of Northern Ireland spend $350,000 of taxpayers’ money on a discrimination case that involved no discrimination, but the UK Supreme Court suggests that ECNI is itself….discriminatory.
Do we really need all these government commissions, whether in Colorado or Northern Ireland? Why is my tax money being spent on these “search and destroy” exercises against people of faith and conscience?
(Photo credit: Albert Bridge. This photo has been cropped. CC BY-SA 2.0.)
