Hemlock with a slice of cake

I've said it before here that, unless one is an 'equal opportunities offender' like Seth MacFarlane (creator of Family Guy, American Dad and several ventures of varying quality), to discriminate against anyone because of their beliefs, race, gender or sexuality is abhorrent.  Yet asserting the supremacy of one attribute over another is a form of prejudice in itself and the Equality Act that the last Labour government instituted in its dying days emptied the public space of legitimate differences of opinion.
Following a spate of similar court rulings in the USA, a bakery run by Christians has been found guilty of discriminating against a gay rights activist, Gareth Lee, by refusing to ice the wording "Support Gay Marriage" beneath an image of Bert and Ernie (acknowledged gay characters from Sesame Street).  Admittedly, the bakery was foolish in accepting the request in the first place and making Mr Lee pay upfront, before telling him two days the later the order could not be fulfilled.  I can understand fully why Mr Lee would interpret this as a slight and it is grossly unprofessional.  Karen McArthur, a director and founder of the bakery, may have taken the order to 'avoid embarrassment and confrontation' but ironically compounded such things many times over.
A full refund, a fulsome apology explaining the position of their religious beliefs and some form of mutually agreed compensation should have been in order.  It seems that this was not acceptable to Mr Lee who was attending a social function later that day where he would have presented the cake, though it seems also that Mr Lee was not one to make a fuss, yet it spread by word and mouth at that party and his case was taken up by the Northern Ireland Equality Commission to bring the full force of state-sanctioned opprobrium on the bakery.
This is not a case of 'No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs'.  The bakery made an honest mistake and should have made every effort at recompense to Mr Lee.  Instead, at Belfast County Court today, district judge Isobel Brownlie declared, "This is direct discrimination for which there can be no justification," as if McArthur and her co-workers had beaten up Mr Lee for his sexual orientation.  They had tried to avoid discriminating in the first instance and it had rebounded on the bakery.  Yet, without being offensive about it, the bakery should be free to damage their business by declining the custom of those who wish to make statements the bakery find incompatible with their beliefs, possibly even with directions to a local commercial rival.  In the opinion of the judge though, they should suppress their beliefs - essentially compromise who they are - in favour of rights warmly promoted by the state.  In not dissimilar circumstances 2,500 years ago, Plato fulminated against democracy after his mentor, Socrates, was (and indeed felt) compelled to drink the hemlock for refusing to accept the pieties of the day and the establishment.
Socrates was sentenced to death for "failing to acknowledge the gods that the city acknowledges" and "introducing new deities" - the first charge, with artistic licence, applies in this case in Northern Ireland but one could reword the second charge as 'reintroducing God'.  Judge Brownlie said the bakers should have been aware on the on-going same sex marriage debate, as Socrates' accusers might have said he should have been aware of the deteriorating military situation against Sparta debate and suppressed himself.  The cake row has prompted a proposal  to introduce a 'conscience clause' into equality legislation (similar calls are made in socially conservative states in the USA) - yet Sinn Féin (exhibiting the authoritarian tendencies that can be found on the political Left) have vowed to veto it.  The judgement delivered in Belfast isn't against Christianity or in favour of gay rights but against the very tenets of European civilisation, would that more people be aware of it.  Whither Jonathan Swift?