Ashers Bakery – when the icing sugar has settled
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[…] As the icing sugar settles on the ruling, here are three broad points we might like to consider as Christians who have been following the case:
A win for everyone
The case is a win for the LGBT community. In fact, it’s a win for all protected minorities under equality law legislation. Lady Hale, who presided in the Preddy v Bull case, made clear that this judgment does not give license to discriminate against anyone based on any protected characteristic.
[…] Whichever way the result had went, we can be sure that there will be more litigation in similar cases in the future. From the start, the Equality Commission said that its hands were tied by the structures which prevented them from pursuing a role as mediator or investigator once a party had come to them with a complaint. If the bakery had gone to the Equality Commission first, or subsequently to the Human Rights Commission, this case could have looked very different from the outset.
In my view, there should be some reconsideration of these structures where a potential legal case involves parties which are each claiming protected characteristics under equality or human rights legislation. There must be a better mechanism which can allow for conversation, understanding and alternative dispute resolution (ADR) to be facilitated in cases where both parties have protected characteristics and where the outcome of the case is in the public interest by way of clarifying the law.
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