The appeal by Ashers in the NI 'gay cake' row, as it is colloquially known, has been rejected by the NI Court of Appeal. Mr Lee had requested a cake from Ashers with the phrase 'Support Gay Marriage' scanned into the icing on the top. The order was initially accepted but was later refused. This was deemed to be direct discrimination by the County Court and that has now been confirmed by the Court of Appeal.

This case raised issues of public importance regarding the extent to which suppliers of goods and services can refuse service on grounds of sexual orientation, religious belief and political opinion in Northern Ireland. Similar laws in relation to equal status apply in the Republic of Ireland and we have seen similar conflict reported in this jurisdiction relating to sexual orientation and religious belief concerning printers and their erstwhile customers.

There is a conflict between the protections for certain groups within society and genuinely held religious beliefs which run counter to those protections. The appellants in this case argued that being forced to supply the cake ran counter to their human right to hold their beliefs.

NICA was fairly blunt in its judgement:

"Neither the 1998 Order nor the 2006 Regulations [NI equality legislation] treat the appellants less favourably.  The legislation prohibits the provision of discriminatory services on the ground of sexual orientation.  The appellants are caught by the legislation because they are providing such discriminatory services.  Anyone who applies a religious aspect or a political aspect to the provision of services may be caught by equality legislation, not because that person seeks to distinguish on a basis that is prohibited between those who will receive their service and those who will not.

"The answer is not to have the legislation changed and thereby remove the equality protection concerned.  The answer is for the supplier of services to cease distinguishing, on prohibited grounds, between those who may or may not receive the service.  Thus the supplier may provide the particular service to all or to none but not to a selection of customers based on prohibited grounds.  In the present case, the appellants might elect not to provide a service that involves any religious or political message.  What they may not do is provide a service that only reflects their own political or religious message in relation to sexual orientation."

That's a fairly clear message to anyone in business in Northern Ireland - deliver your services to everyone or none equally or stop doing business. However, the Court was also critical of the role played by the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland, the NI equivalent of the Irish Equality and Human Rights Commission, in this case. The ECNI supported the respondent, Mr. Lee, throughout the court case but they should have had regard to their wider remit:

"In the course of the hearing concern was expressed about the role of the Equality Commission in the pursuit of this case.  It was made clear to us that the Commission recognised its role in ensuring that all elements of Northern Ireland society participate in the commercial space.  To that end, we have been assured that the Commission is available to give advice and assistance to those such as the appellants who may find themselves in difficulties as a result of their deeply held religious beliefs.  The only correspondence to the appellants that we have seen, however, did not include any offer of such assistance and may have created the impression that the Commission was not interested in assisting the faith community where issues of this sort arose.  It should not have been beyond the capacity of the Commission to provide or arrange for the provision of advice to the appellants at an earlier stage and we would hope that such a course would be followed if a situation such as this were to arise in future."

http://www.bailii.org/nie/cases/NICA/2016/39.html