The recent ruling regarding the Ashers Bakery is just another moment in a long series of events that demonstrate just how far the North has still to go. I'm not talking about gay rights specifically; one only has to look at some of disgusting rhetoric used by the "No" side prior to Ireland's referendum to see that the North is not alone on that front. The Ashers ruling is just another demonstration that large portions of the North are struggling to, or (as I suspect is more likely) unwilling to define themselves in any other manner than through their religion. The divide in the North has always been a religious one, it may have manifested itself in different ways down through the years but religion was always there at the root of the cause and more than happy to appear at the branch. As I grew up, a line was trumpeted to my generation on repeat, that Protestants and Catholics would soon come to put aside their differences and we would learn to live together in harmony.
There is no doubt that things have gotten better and there is a debt my generation owe to the like of David Hume and Mo Mowlam that we'll never repay. To date however, we have failed to remove religion from its prominent perch within the national consciousness. Large parts of my generation, those that came before and those coming up the line after us, still gleefully define ourselves by our religious beliefs. The problem with gleefully defining yourself as a particular religion is that you have built into your set-up the belief that everyone else is not only wrong, but that they will burn in hellfire for eternity. There are few things more at odds with the Jesus I was taught about by my parents than taking delight or even just some kind of self-inflated smugness from the knowledge that the family over the fence are facing the pitchforks come judgement day. This in itself is bad enough, but in the North it has been coupled with another issue, that of culture, rights and perceived discrimination. Accepting that the political problems in the North have a religious grounding, ties them to the idea of religious persecution. And when you have politics defined by religious partisanship, as opposed to simple policy divide; then nearly all issues can be made a battleground for one side’s rights.
The Unionist movement, and by extension the Protestant community with which it is intrinsically linked has held the cards of power in the North for the guts of a century at this point. They've never been denied work or housing based on their religion and when Stormont has been open and functional, they've held the majority of the seats. Their political rights, which they see as inseparable from their religious beliefs have never been infringed. If you had the benefit of growing up in the North on that side of the divide (as I did) then this is the norm. As such, any change in this is not a shift in the social attitude, nor is it a concession of ground to a lesser party. It is an imagined attack on the world as you understand/like it. To use an analogy not based on NI politics; we all know that one person who has at one point opined, "why is there no straight pride march?" Whilst being fully aware that they've never been made to feel ashamed for being heterosexual.
Ashers Bakery and their supporters are trumpeting a line that it's one gay cake today and tomorrow they'll be burning down the churches. They've somehow managed to tell an entire community that they won't serve them based on their love lives. They've done this whilst at the same time convincing themselves they're modern day William Tilsdales, martyrs for a worthwhile cause. They've received a cake order and somehow deluded themselves into thinking they're Rosa Parks, refusing to move to the back of the bus. Listening to their rhetoric however, one is more inclined to think of George Wallace calling for the continuation of racial segregation. The whole thing would be a bit more palatable in terms of logic, if not on grounds of taste, if they were at least universal in their principles. For every wedding cake order, have they demanded evidence that the couple are getting married in a church? That they've managed to resist the sins of the flesh before the wedding night? This is a la carte Protestantism born out of an unhealthy obsession over what the neighbours are doing with their genitals. One is tempted to see how far their devotion to the good book goes, I wonder if I can still get my cake celebrating infanticide and child trafficking iced?
"Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every
woman who has known man intimately. But all the girls who have not known man
intimately, spare for yourselves".
Numbers 31:17-18
Sadly, they've an unlikely friend in that most modern of social constructs, the wannabe contrarian. That unwanted white noise trumpeting in the background of this debate with some unhelpful nonsense like, "I'm an atheist but even I don't think they should be made to make the cake". Again, I'd invite them to try that sentence with some word replacement like, "I'm an atheist but even I don't think they should be made to serve black people" and then see how it sits. We've all read Letters to a Young Contrarian, but most of us weren't dumb enough to think we're Christopher Hitchens as a result. This is not a case of legal rulings or government policy forcing you to think or adopt liberal policies. This is a case of legal rulings and government policy protecting the rights of a minority.
The other common argument from this side involves an imaginary bacon sandwich, something they believe the Equality Commission would not force a Muslim-owned Cafe to serve them. The ridiculousness of the argument means it dismisses itself but some people don't seem to pick up on that. For this argument to have any sense of muster, it requires a Muslim-owned and operated cafe to exist and that cafe serves bacon sandwiches. In other words, a cafe that will openly decline to serve you an item from their menu because it infringes on their (the owners, waiting staff, chefs etc...) rights. Is this really the argument you're looking to use here?
Ultimately, I don't think the Equality Commission should have taken Ashers to court. This whole circus has just been more fuel to their incredibly pompous fire of self-deluding lunacy. It also pulls on the thread of another argument regarding the rights of the retailer and well, we haven't got all day have we? In the age of social media, a well-aimed boycott of their services would probably have been a better tactic. That said, I'm a heterosexual white guy and as such will check my privilege on this one. I'll let the gay community decide what fights it believes are worth fighting.
As for the MacArthurs, they know they're not being persecuted against, they know their rights have not been infringed. They've chosen to mask their decision with their religion in the hope that it gives it some veneer of respectability but as I've previously mentioned, this religion of theirs is quite selective. This pick'n'mix approach to religious teachings isn't about morals, it's about justifying your bigotry to yourself. Because somewhere along the way it wasn't enough to just be a pair of successful bakers in Northern Ireland that had to be twinned with the most dominant social stratification in the North, how your religion makes you better. They, no doubt, will decry the identity-politics of the modern day without a sense of irony, anyone who chooses to die on the hill of gay wedding cakes has a seriously distorted view of the world. I know you, I know you both, I grew up amongst you; for the sake of the North, for the sake of generations to come, please go fuck yourselves.
