LGBT people are tired of discrimination – just let us eat cake
metro.co.ukEuropean Court of Human Rights threw out a gay man’s case after his seven year-long legal battle where he was initially refused custom because he’d asked for those same words on a cake.
The verdict makes me sad. Not just because a world with less cake is surely a sadder world, but because the ruling is indicative of something bigger, and what many of us believe is a slow and steady roll-back of lesbian, gay, bi and trans rights in the UK.Despite both a court and an appeal court initially ruling in favour of Gareth Lee – the man who’d ordered the cake – the husband-and-wife owners of Ashers Baking Company took it to the Supreme Court and won.That’s when Lee took his case to the European Court of Human Rights, which has now ruled his case as ‘inadmissible’ because he hadn’t invoked his rights under the European Convention of Human Rights ‘at any point in the domestic proceedings’ in the UK courts.It’s been a long legal battle that has no doubt left Lee exhausted – and I have nothing but solidarity for him and his cause.Until 2007, it was legal for providers of goods, facilities, and services to discriminate against someone on the grounds of sexual orientation in the UK.
That means that less than two decades ago, it would have been perfectly legal for Ashers Baking Co. to refuse Lee’s custom simply because he’s gay, regardless of what he wanted written on a cake.Despite this relatively recent change in law, it’s still commonplace for LGBT+ people to experience discrimination when accessing services, whether it’s outright and blatant or subtly in the form of micro aggressions.
This is one of a number of reasons that lots of LGBT folk like me – and I’m sure people from other marginalised communities – often prefer to shop.
