By Ian Graham
BELFAST (Reuters) - A Northern Ireland bakery owned by devout Christians who refused to bake a cake with a pro-gay marriage slogan was found guilty of discrimination in Belfast on Tuesday and fined.
The case has become heavily politicized in Northern Ireland with members of the province's largest political party, the Democratic Unionist Party, proposing the introduction of a Conscience Clause Bill to allow the withholding of services on grounds of religious belief.
Northern Ireland's Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, a member of the Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein, welcomed the judgment as "a good result for equality".
Gay rights activist Gareth Lee took Ashers Baking Company in Belfast to court in a civil action after it canceled his order for a cake with the slogan "Support Gay Marriage" on it. The case was funded by the British province's Equality Commission.
The firm initially accepted the order but later contacted Lee to cancel it and refund his money. Lee told a court hearing over three days in March that the bakery's refusal made him feel "unworthy" and "a lesser person".
Speaking outside the court just before the judgment on Tuesday, bakery owner Daniel McArthur said: "We happily serve everyone but we cannot promote a cause that goes against what the Bible says about marriage."
In her judgment, District Judge Isobel Brownlie said that while the defendants had a right to religious beliefs "they are limited as to how they manifest them".
For it to be otherwise "would be to allow religious belief to dictate what the law is," she added.
The court found that Ashers had discriminated against Lee on the grounds of his sexual orientation as well as his political beliefs and ordered the bakery to pay £500 ($776).
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Showing posts with label Northern Ireland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Northern Ireland. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
N.Ireland soccer mob beats Catholic man to death
DUBLIN -- Militant Protestant supporters of a Scottish soccer team beat to death a Roman Catholic man in the latest sign of how sports rivalries inspire sectarian bloodshed in Northern Ireland, police and politicians said Monday.
Witnesses said more than 20 Protestant supporters of Glasgow Rangers, many of them wearing the team's blue-and-white jerseys and scarves, drove into a Catholic district of the town of Coleraine after Rangers clinched the Scottish Premier League championship Sunday.
Billy Leonard, a former policeman and politician from the Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein, said several carloads of anti-Catholic extremists came armed with clubs "and literally attacked the first person they came across."
Kevin McDaid, 49, was fatally bludgeoned while his wife, Evelyn, and a 46-year-old Catholic neighbor, Damien Fleming, were both injured. Fleming was reported in critical condition...
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Pope hails Irish role in Europe
 Pope Benedict praised St Columbanus in his weekly audience |
The pope has timed a speech about the role of Ireland in European history to coincide with the eve of the Lisbon Referendum.
Pope Benedict has used his weekly audience to praise the central role of Irish missionaries in European history, a day before voters go to the polls to decide the future of the Lisbon Treaty.
Speaking to tens of thousands of pilgrims in St Peter's Square, the Pope gave a sermon about the life of St Columbanus, an Irish monk born in 543 who travelled to Europe to spread Christianity.
In his speech charting the saint's life, Pope Benedict said that Columbanus could be called a "European saint".
The Pope explained that Columbanus, who was born in Leinster, entered monastic life in Bangor aged 20, before leaving "with 12 companions to begin missionary work on the European continent, where the migration of peoples from the north and the east had caused entire Christian regions to lapse back into paganism".
He established three monasteries, including one built in Luxeuil which "became the centre for the expansion of monastic and missionary life of the Irish tradition on mainland Europe".
Columbanus and his Irish monks were expelled in 610 and "condemned to definitive exile" after a row with King Theodric over the monarch's "adulterous relationships," the Pope explained.
Unable to return to Ireland, they moved to Switzerland where they continued their work.
'Founding father of Europe'
The saint was an early advocate of European unity, at least in religious terms.
The church was split with schisms in northern Italy, prompting Columbanus to write "a letter to Pope Boniface IV to convince him to make certain decisive steps towards re-establishing unity".
Pope Benedict described Columbanus as one of the founding "Fathers of Europe".
"(Columbanus) spent all his energies to nourish the Christian roots of the nascent Europe.
"With his spiritual strength, with his faith, with his love of God and neighbour, he became one of the Fathers of Europe, showing us today the way to those roots from which our continent may be reborn," he said.
While the Pope did not urge a "yes" vote in Ireland, church sources said that the timing of his speech would not have been accidental.
He has frequently spoken about the need for European unity and for a Europe as a "community" which he has said must acknowledge its Christian heritage.
He also chose the name Benedict, as the last Pope Benedict was a vigorous advocate of European unity, striving to avoid the outbreak of World War.
While the Irish Catholic hierarchy has not taken a stance for or against the Lisbon Treaty, or directed its congregation on how to vote, a statement by Irish bishops last month was widely seen as supportive of the treaty.
It urged voters not to register a protest vote and condemned groups spreading "false information", a regular jibe by the "yes" campaign used against their opponents in the "no" camp.
"Those who seek to influence the outcome of the referendum either by offering misleading or patently incorrect advice or by introducing extraneous factors into the debate, ought to be condemned," the bishops said in their statement.
The bishops also said they believed the treaty would not change Ireland's constitutional prohibition on abortion, an argument put forward by some, including a number of clergy, against the treaty.
The Pope is close to the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin Diarmaid Martin, who was a senior figure and diplomat in the Vatican when Pope Benedict was cardinal.
Archbishop Martin presented the Irish Catholic bishops' statement on the Irish media, and is likely to have briefed the Vatican on the referendum.
Whether this inspired a speech by the Pope about Irish missionaries' historic role in Europe - just as the country's people determine the future shape of Europe in the referendum - is probably a Vatican decision likely to remain behind closed doors.
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