England’s Supreme Court has handed a victory for free speech to a Northern Ireland bakery that refused to bake a cake with a political slogan. In Lee (Respondent) v Ashers Baking Company Ltd and others (Appellants) (Northern Ireland) [2018] UKSC 49, the court held that refusing to bake a cake with a slogan saying, “support gay marriage” was not discrimination. It further held that requiring them to do so would breach their fundamental Human Rights.

Lawyers.

The case is important because the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom is considered to be far more left wing than the Supreme Court of the United States, but it accepted the arguments against compelled political speech the US Supreme Court avoided and indeed went way, way further. The unanimous (not split) court judgement, delivered by Lady Hale, is here.
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