An LGBT activist who lost a years-long fight in British courts over his demand that a Christian baker create a cake promoting same-sex marriage contends the ruling violates his “human rights.”
And he wants the European Court of Human Rights to rule.
It was the U.K. Supreme Court that ruled Ashers bakery had a right not to promote same-sex marriage and the decision had nothing to do with the homosexuality of activist Gareth Lee.
Christians have a right not to promote messages that violate their religious beliefs, the court rule. U.S. courts have ruled similarly.
Now Lee claims the Supreme Court “failed to give appropriate weight” to his own rights under the European Convention of Human Rights.
His lawyers said the new case won’t affect the Ashers, because it is targeting U.K. law.
Lee originally brought the lawsuit against Ashers because the bakery declined to create a cake for him with the message “Support Gay Marriage.”
The appeal only has been filed with the ECHR, and no decision has been made.
The Christian Institute, which defended Ashers, said Lee’s latest maneuver is unlikely to overturn the central aspect of the Supreme Court judgment, which was a unanimous ruling.
Ashers, owned and run by the McArthur family, rejected Lee’s order for a same-sex wedding cake in 2014.
The tax-funded Equality Commission for Northern Ireland then took the family to court and fought until it lost at the Supreme Court.
Simon Calvert, a deputy director at the Christian Institute, said, “The judgment in favor of Ashers was welcomed by lawyers and commentators from across the spectrum because it protects people of all views.
“I’m surprised that anyone would want to overturn a ruling that protects gay business owners from being forced to promote views they don’t share, just as much as it protects Christian business owners,” he said.
“Judges at the U.K.’s highest court could not have been clearer in their decision: Ashers’ objection to the cake was to the message, not Gareth Lee himself. From what we know so far, we do not believe there is a real danger of the substance of the judgment being overturned.”
Lee’s new lawyers said they were challenging “the concept that a business can have religious beliefs.”
The ruling last fall from the U.K. Supreme Court said, “Nobody should be forced to have or express a political opinion in which he does not believe.”
Lower courts in the U.K. had ruled against Ashers, but the attorney general for Northern Ireland, John Larkin, argued in court on behalf of the bakery.
Larkin asserted Ashers’ owners have the right to reject a request to put a pro-homosexual message on a cake under the nation’s freedom of speech laws as well as the European Convention on Human Rights.
“No one should be forced to be the mouthpiece for someone else’s views when they are opposed to their own – whether in print or in icing sugar,” he said at the time.
He said the “issue of political and religious discrimination is direct” and the ramifications are “potentially enormous.”
Ashers even earned the support of homosexual activist Peter Tatchell, who wrote in the London Guardian that while he originally condemned Ashers, he has changed his mind.
“Much as I wish to defend the gay community, I also want to defend freedom of conscience, expression and religion,” he wrote.
“It pains me to say this, as a long-time supporter of the struggle for LGBT equality in Northern Ireland, where same-sex marriage and gay blood donors remain banned. The equality laws are intended to protect people against discrimination. A business providing a public service has a legal duty to do so without discrimination based on race, gender, faith and sexuality.
“However, the court erred by ruling that Lee was discriminated against because of his sexual orientation and political opinions. … His cake request was refused not because he was gay, but because of the message he asked for. There is no evidence that his sexuality was the reason Ashers declined his order,” he wrote.
