Following the latest case with cake at the core, Athelstane Aamodt takes a culinary journey through a few more legal pickles
The judgment in the ‘gay cake’ case of Lee v Ashers Baking Company Ltd [2018] UKSC 49, [2018] All ER (D) 43 (Oct) has provoked a great deal of discussion. The conclusion that the Supreme Court reached—that there was a difference between the message on the cake and the protected characteristic of the person requesting that message—has been hailed by many as a victory for the freedom of ideas and expression, and by others as a defeat for equal rights.
Food, it seems, is often at the heart of important cases; while the judgment in Lee was being prepared, the Supreme Court of the United States handed down judgment in another ‘gay cake’ case, Masterpiece Cakeshop Ltd v Colorado Civil Rights Commission , 138 S Ct 1719. The facts of the US case are different, but the conclusion, to quote Lady Hale, ‘… that there is a clear distinction between refusing to produce a cake conveying a
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