Sexuality discrimination is outlawed both in the workplace and when buying goods and services.
In order to prove direct discrimination, the employee or customer must show that the business treated them less favourably than they would have treated others because of one or more of what are known as the protected characteristics. These are age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation.
This article looks into the recent Supreme Court case nicknamed the ‘gay cake case’. It centred around a customer who ordered a cake with a pro-gay marriage message to be iced onto it. The customer, Mr Lee, is a gay man who volunteers with an organisation that supports a campaign to allow same-sex couples to marry in Northern Ireland. In 2014 he asked the bakers to bake a cake showing the Sesame Street characters Bert and Ernie with the headline ‘Support Gay Marriage’. The bakers refused.
Sesame Street clarify that Ernie and Bert are puppets, with no sexuality. They share a bed because of friendship and convenience.
The reason for the refusal was that the bakers are Christians who believe that “The only form of marriage consistent with biblical teaching is that between a man and a woman’.
Mr Lee complained about this incident to the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland (ECNI),which supported Mr Lee’s claim for direct and indirect sexuality discrimination (though this decision is only relevant to direct sexuality discrimination).
The courts initially ruled in his favour. The bakers appealed to the Court of Appeal, where they lost and appealed again to the Supreme Court, the highest court in the land.
The Supreme Court found for the bakers. It found that they had objected to Mr Lee’s cake order because of the message, not because Mr Lee is gay. They could show this because they had previously made other cakes for him.
Conclusion
Many commentators believe that the court relied on a technicality in framing the question in this way. The causal link between the conduct and the reason for it may have been weakened.
The case will no doubt help many employers faced with discrimination claims, not just claims for sexuality discrimination. For example, where an employer refuses to hire or promote someone because they don’t like their foreign accent, they might argue that they would have hired or promoted them if they softened their accent. Where an employer fires someone because they don’t agree with their activities outside work (eg attending Gay Pride), this used to be a sure-fire case of discrimination. But now, we are not so sure.
Ernie and Bert were unavailable for comment.
By Zahid Reza
Image used under CC courtesy of See-ming Lee.