Bowled over

When the equality law was introduced in the dying days of the last government, there were many who warned that it did not have enough safeguards for those who might hold contrary opinions or even make off-colour jokes.  All the same, it was pushed through with the same authoritarian zeal as the clauses it contained.  Making everything not in line with the political fashions of the day punishable was a denial of one of the building blocks of our whole society - Socratic/Platonic philosophy.
In the Euthyphro, Socrates (in Plato's writings) debates with the eponymous man on the nature of justice.  The latter argues that pursuing justice is holy and when challenged as to what 'holy is', Euthyphro contends that 'the holy' is that of which all the gods approve.  In the words of the scholar Hugh Tredennick, Euthyphro is immediately "confronted by the problem that since what is 'divinely approved' is determined by what the gods approve, while what the gods approve is determined by what is holy, what is 'divinely approved' cannot be identical in meaning with what is holy (Where A determines B and B determines C, A is not the same as C)."  In the same way, to be anti-discriminatory is good (holy) and this is approved by the political class (gods) and this results in the Equality Act (divine approval).  Again, in the words of Tredennick, the "idea that holiness can be defined in terms of what the gods approve of... is never likely to have attracted Socrates of Plato; it is bit like defining justice in terms of what a ruler or a ruling class approves, and this would have worried Plato immensely... The question which excites the Socratic mind is how anybody, man or god, can recognize any action as an instance of goodness."  The converse also applies to any action as an instance of badness.
Some things seems fairly clear-cut.  Spiteful mockery of a person's colour or sexual persuasion or using such terms as a way to denigrate others we as a society would not accept today (nor would I).  Indeed, they have come to been seen as abhorrent by a majority of people who support legal action against the practitioners of such hate.  Other times the distinction is not so clear.  A registrar who asks to be excused from performing a marriage ceremony involving two people of the same gender because they find such a coupling inimical to their personal belief will lose their job, even if there was an equally qualified registrar available to perform that ceremony.  It as if the unfortunate ex-registar owned a shop and hung a 'no blacks or Irish' sign on the front as to the opprobrium that they faced.  The Liberal Democrat MP, Simon Hughes, who kept his sexuality a secret (even the phrase 'in the closest' can be considered demeaning) for a long time and is now openly gay, was most vocal in support of a clause in the Gay Marriage Bill that protected people's rights to a job in conjunction with their personal beliefs.  The clause, without government support, failed.  No. 10's response? A flat "The prime minister supports marriage."  Socrates (possibly gay himself) would have rolled his eyes at that.
And yesterday broke the news that a bakery in Northern Ireland is being faced with court proceedings by the Equality Commission on the basis that they discriminated against a homosexual man.  Or rather they chose not to bake him a cake, not on the grounds of his sexual orientation, but because it contained a political message which they felt contradicted their Christian beliefs.  Now you can take it or leave whether you believe the bakery's owner that such and such is in the Bible.  It is irrelevant to the crux of the matter.  The bakery, a private business, was asked to bake a cake with the phrase 'Support Gay Marriage'.  They turned the matter over in their heads, decided they couldn't in all conscience produce such a cake (as also they decline coverings that are pornographic or contain swear words) and called the customer to explain their position and give him a refund.  This seems fair enough.  They couldn't give the customer what he wanted and so they lost his custom.  That wasn't the end of the matter though.
The customer found another bakery that would accede to his request.  Andrew Muir, the outgoing and openly gay mayor of North Down and a member of the centrist Alliance party, said the Bert and Ernie cake was for an event he was hosting in the constituency. He said it was ordered to coincide with International Day Against Homophobia on 17th May.  Obviously, catching wind of the cake affair at the party, I wouldn't be surprised if he encouraged the ex-customer to make a complaint to the Equalities Commission.  Along with Gavin Boyd of the gay rights organisation The Rainbow Project, Muir seems to be doing his best to prove the allegations of crusty Conservatives of a 'militant gay campaign' true.  He not only erroneously contends that the bakery refused to serve the customer because he was gay but raises the stakes further saying that the bakery was trying to scupper the event by not making the cake.  It is equivalent to saying a vegan store was trying to stop all BBQs in the neighbourhood by not serving meat.  If the times and attitudes were different (as they were not so long ago) and Muir and Boyd ran a bakery, would they produce a cake that said 'Oppose Gay Marriage'?  Not on your nelly!  They would lose the custom but they would stay true to their beliefs.  The pendulum swings one way, then it swings the other, the extremes not serving the whole.  As soon as the state prescribes what people can say and do in private life and business that may inconvenience but does not harm others mentally or physically, we are on the road to a pasteurised, monochrome society; in the distance the horn sounds of the persecutions of Decius (with the emperor i.e. the state being the sole repository of the loyalty of the citizen), if not Diocletian.  It is the pressing of hemlock into the hands of Socrates.  He chose death over recanting his beliefs for state-sponsored beliefs.  Devout Christians would not take their own lives but they would accept prison as St Paul did.  It is getting to that stage if this prosecution is successful.