Heather Bellamy spoke with Simon Calvert from The Christian Institute, about the public reaction to the recent ruling, the implications for free speech and freedom of conscience for all people and the changes to the law that he would like to see happen.

Simon Calvert

Ashers Baking Company has lost its appeal against last year's County Court ruling, which found it had broken political, religious and sexual orientation discrimination laws, when it turned down a gay activist's order for a pro-gay marriage campaign cake. Heather Bellamy spoke with Simon Calvert, the Deputy Director for Public Affairs, at The Christian Institute.

Heather: Why did the Ashers Baking Company refuse the order to bake the cake?

Simon: They contacted us when they first refused the order, two or three years ago now. They asked for our help because they could see the potential for this to run and run, as indeed it has.

The reasons for not producing the cake were very simple, the message on the cake was a message, "support gay marriage," and the McArthur family who run Ashers Baking Company are Christians and they knew that they couldn't, in good conscience, do that. They didn't want to associate themselves with that campaign to change marriage law in Northern Ireland, because of course same-sex marriage is not legal there.

The judgement that was handed down a few weeks ago actually acknowledged what the MacArthurs have said all along, which was that they did not turn down the order because the man who ordered the cake was gay, or because they thought that he was gay, they turned it down solely because of the message on the cake.

What the court said though, was that the court still considered that a form of sexual orientation discrimination, to not be willing to print a pro same-sex marriage message.

So their reasons were acknowledged, that they weren't rejecting this customer. Remember that they had served this customer before and as they've said, they would be happy to serve him again. It wasn't at all about rejecting a person, it was simply about not wanting to be forced to be associated with a particular message. Most people believe that nobody should be forced to be associated with a particular message if they strongly disagree with it.

Heather: Is this the first ruling that's interpreted the law in that way, that it's discrimination when it's about a message, not just a person?

Simon: It is and that's why there's been such a huge public reaction against the ruling. I don't think anybody can deny that public sympathy is overwhelmingly on the side of the McArthur family. Obviously there are many people who agree with their Christian faith and agree with their views and feel supportive of their family for that reason, but there are many others who don't agree with their faith, who don't agree with their views about marriage, but who still think that they have been treated very badly.

Peter Tatchell, the gay rights activist, has spoken out very publicly in their defence, having initially supported the case against them. He changed his mind and he realised that this case had huge ramifications for free speech for everybody. As he's said and as we've said throughout this, if you force a Christian baker to print a pro same-sex marriage message on a cake, and by the way, the cake wasn't for a wedding, it was for a campaign stunt, if you force a Christian baker to do that, he said, well maybe you can force gay bakers to print anti-gay messages.

We took advice from a QC who confirmed that if this ruling stands, there is potential, for example, for a Muslim printer to be told that he has to print cartoons of Mohammad. That would be profoundly offensive to him, but on the basis of this kind of reasoning, the logic would be that he would have to do that. Or a Roman Catholic baker would have to print a cake with the message saying 'support abortion'. Again, I think the vast majority of the public think that that's so offensive to any idea of freedom of conscience and freedom of speech, to use the law to compel people to help promote campaigns that they completely disagree with. That's why there is so much public sympathy for them and that's why the ruling has been condemned so widely in the media and beyond.

Heather: Religion is a protected characteristic in equality law. In what way does the law ever protect religion and the people of faith in practice, not just in law?

Simon: I want to say it does protect them. I wouldn't want to paint too bleak a picture that Christians always lose these cases, because they don't.

The Christian Institute has been supporting the McArthur family through our legal defence fund. We've been running a legal defence now for 10 years and over that 10 years we've raised and spent something in the order of three million pounds on cases that have pursued the defence and promotion of religious liberty.