In August, lawyers representing Gareth Lee, the man behind the ‘gay cake’ row in Northern Ireland, announced they will take the UK Supreme Court to court challenging their ruling in favour of Ashers Bakery.
The European Court of Human Rights will be asked to overturn the ruling made in 2018, because they believe that baking the cake did not imply ‘the bakery support[ed] (expressly or implicitly) the message of the cake’.
Lee said: ‘I’d fight for the rights of business owners to be able to hold their own religious beliefs. I have my own beliefs. But that’s not what my case has ever been about. This is about limited companies being somehow able to pick and choose which customers they will serve.’
The Supreme Court ruled, in line with what Ashers always maintained, that they were always willing to serve anyone.
This case does not involve either Ashers, or the Christian Institute, as it is just Lee’s lawyers – Phoenix Law – going to court on his behalf. The process will be unaffected by Brexit as the European Court of Human Rights is not part of the European Union.
