Ashers Bakery ‘gay cake’ appeal judgment: 11% of Evangelical Christians haven’t got a clue about religious liberty

Oct 24, 2016 by Jill

by Archbishop Cranmer:

It was very tempting to go with the affirmatory ‘89% of Evangelical Christians support freedom of religion’, which would have been the wholesome, encouraging, Christian thing to do, right? But the five per cent who do not is actually rather disappointing. And the further six per cent who don’t give a damn either way is disturbing. It makes one wonder if they are Evangelicals at all, or whether they grasp the fundamental imperative of freedom of religion which is the fons et origo of all our liberties. What sort of Christian opposes or doesn’t care about the freedom to proclaim the gospel or walk in spirit and in truth?

The context is an Evangelical Alliance survey ahead of the judgment today in the case of Gareth Lee vs Ashers Bakery – the notorious case of the ‘gay cake‘ and previous court judgment which constituted ‘equality tyranny‘ – which was duly and necessarily appealed on the basis of freedom of religion and freedom of political expression, not to say common-sense and natural justice.

By way of background, the McArthur family, who own Ashers Bakery, run a successful family business. They make lots of nice cakes. Gareth Lee, a gay rights activist, asked Ashers Bakery to make him a cake with the slogan ‘Support Gay Marriage’ iced on it. Ashers were happy to sell Mr Lee a cake, but not to promote a view contrary to their firmly-held religious beliefs (not to mention contrary to the law of the land). When they ultimately declined his order, Mr Lee went to the Equality Commission who supported his claim alleging discrimination. At first hearing in the County Court, Ashers Bakery was found to have discriminated against Mr Lee on all three grounds of the claim – sexual orientation, religious belief and political opinion. The Attorney General intervened in the Appeal case, raising issues about the ECHR compatibility of the very legislation on which the initial findings were made. The judgment from the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal is due today.

If it goes against Ashers Bakery, the bell tolls for freedom of religion. The loss of any liberty diminishes us because it is the essence of liberal democracy. But the loss of the freedom to exercise the religious conscience is particularly apocalyptic. Ashers did not decline to sell Mr Lee a cake on the grounds of his sexuality; they declined to make a cake with a slogan which sinned against their conscience, seared by the Holy Spirit. They would have refused to make this cake if the customer had been heterosexual, bisexual, pansexual or asexual. Mr Lee’s sexuality was irrelevant to Ashers: it was the religio-political slogan which, they felt, crossed that threshold between moral orthodoxy and heresy, and so Mr Lee’s order, in all conscience, had to be declined.

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