What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Why the cake decision is the right decision

    cakeThere has been a judgement this morning in an iconic legal case in Northern Ireland. A judge has found that a bakery discriminated against a gay customer over their refusal to bake a cake which had a slogan on it supporting the right of gay people to be married.

    The decision was the right one. There will be shrieks of outrage from many. There will be a backlash which may be dreadful. However it is still the right decision.

    It is the right decision because the law is quite clear that people can’t be denied goods or services because they happen to be gay.

    If there were opt outs from this law because of the views of those supplying goods and services then the law would have no effect at all. That’s the whole point of this law. If gay people are going to be able to live in a world where they are not discriminated against then godly Christians don’t get to chose not to have that law. So called bible-believing Christians didn’t ought to have a problem with this because they have an obligation to live under the law. Check out Romans 13 if you don’t believe me.

    This is also not a clash of rights between the gays and the Christians. No. Gay people have a right not to be discriminated against in shops but crucially the same law gives the same right to Christians. If a Christian wants to go into a shop and order a cake then gay owners can’t discriminate against them on the grounds of religion.

    The point of all this is not that gay people are privileged in the law, they are not. The point is that customers, all customers, are protected from being discriminated against due to their sexuality or their religion or indeed a number of other categories too.

    You can’t refuse to bake a cake because your customers want it to say, “God so loved the world that he gave his only son Jesus”. You can’t refuse to have a Christian couple staying in your Bed and Breakfast because you happen to be a pagan or an atheist. And that’s right and proper. You can’t refuse to produce a pro-gay cake nor refuse a gay couple a bed in a B and B. And that’s right too.

    These rights are what we need for a good society to flourish.

    People sometimes remember the kind of signs that used to appear outside premises before the various pieces of anti-discrimination law were passed.

    “No blacks, no dogs, no Irish” is one famous example of appalling discrimination.

    Those in Northern Ireland need to remember that these laws protect us all.

    , , , ,

7 responses to “Ask! Tell!”

  1. Eamonn Avatar
    Eamonn

    Count me in as a straight supporter of gay people, clergy or lay. But count me in, too, as one who respects people’s right to privacy. As a hetersexual male, I would not expect to be asked about my sexuality, or to be pressurised into being explicit about it, had I chosen to remain unmarried.

    Reply
  2. kelvin Avatar
    kelvin

    I think that issues of privacy are a long way away from issues of whether one’s life should suffer for chosing to be open.

    Both important issues but they are very different issues one from another.

    Reply
  3. Steven Avatar
    Steven

    I am about to “out” myself as a straight supporter of gay clergy in the Church of Ireland by getting a letter published in my local paper!

    It is one thing to have a personal (private) opinion and whole different thing to go public with that view. Feels quite liberating actually!

    I sort of wonder how I got to this point given that I used to be a fairly moderately against full inclusion in the life of the Church…

    I suppose it is the natural result of the way my thinking has been developing over some time, especially by engagement with liberal/progressive anglican thought and seeing that there IS another way to be Christian (as opposed to the dominant conservative evangelical ethos that prevails in my part of Ireland).

    Reply
    1. kelvin Avatar
      kelvin

      Good for you, Steven.

      My guess is that the repercussions of the Very Rev Tom Gordon and his partner coming out about their partnership are shining little rays of light all over the Church of Ireland at the moment, occassionally illuminating things which some would prefer to be kept in darkness.

      > I sort of wonder how I got to this point given that I used to be a fairly moderately against full inclusion in the life of the Church…

      Don’t be surprised – so was I. So were most of the people I know who now advocate on behalf of progressive causes in the church. One of the things that is happening at the moment is that the really hard line anti-gay voices are being undermined by the people they thought they could rely on. It makes loud, cross voices crosser and louder. The sound of those shrill voices is the sound of people who are being squeezed from every direction.

      Reply
  4. william Avatar
    william

    What’s in Kelvin’s Head?
    Confusion? Compassion?
    Wisdom? Folly?
    Light?Darkness?[in the Johannine sense]
    Humility? Arrogance?
    Obedience?Disobedience?
    Hopefully there’s a “next bishop” somewhere near!!

    Reply
  5. Steven Avatar
    Steven

    I agree with you. One of the points I make in the letter to the Portadown Times (the original clergy statement was published in that paper on 16th Sept – see Thinking Anglicans) is that it seems that evangelical clergy in Ireland were happy with a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy and it is the publicity that is causing the problem now – after all it must have been well known that Tom Gordon was living with his partner over the last 20 years!

    It is also ironic that three of the signatories of the clergy statement were women – i.e., those previously ordained following the development of a generous and inclusive theology of Christian leadership (in spite of Saint Paul’s issues). They now seek to use their authority to prevent others from benefiting from the very development that they benefited from…

    The only issue, I suppose, is that this development did take the Church of Ireland by surprise and the silence from the Bishops has been unhelpful.

    I would be interested to know your views on the tension between acting innovatively (perhaps, unilaterally) and the need to respect the whole body of Christ etc…

    The situation in TEC in respect of the ordination of Gene Robinson as Bishop, by contrast, involved an open and transparent development that went through the standard procedures of the Church. I know that in this case the issue is in respect of a civil partnership – which it was Dean Gordon’s “right” to enter under the law of the RoI but the significance of this move for the wider Church of Ireland would not have been lost in either himself or his Bishop.

    I still think he did the right thing but I am sympathetic to the criticism that these issues should not, in general, be dealt with an ad hoc manner… Although in fairness to Dean Gordon I am not sure if the debate would have ever got on the table if he had not acted as he has done.

    Reply
  6. kelvin Avatar
    kelvin

    I think that there is a difference between electing a bishop and who a person choses to make a committment to.

    One is very clearly a public office that needs the consent of the people. The other falls within someone’s personal life.

    I wouldn’t say that is irrelevant and nor would I be so stupid as the recent Church of Scotland statement that said of a Church of Scotland minister entering a Civil Partnership that it was entirely a personal matter. It very clearly isn’t.

    However, I would say that it requires a very different level of consent to being a bishop.

    Clergy living arrangements get complicated very much more quickly than those of other people because very often they are living in housing provided by the congregation. That, if anywhere is where issues of public consent come in.

    Generally speaking, I think that the provision of housing infantilises the clergy and is undesirable.

    Once civil partnerships were introduced, people had the choice of either liking them or lumping them really. Clergy entering into them were an inevitable consequence of their existence.

    Most people I know think that the demands of the Church of England that clergy in civil partnerships promise to be celibate demonstrate a quite disgusting pruriance on the part of bishops making such demands.

    Reply

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