The free market is still the greatest force for reducing prejudice

I suppose if you’d told someone in Northern Ireland 25 years ago that the most contentious issue come May 2015 would be a gay cake they would have taken that future. If you’d gone back another 300 years and told John Locke he might not be so pleased, however, to find that his principle of conscience had been so abused by the people who claimed to follow his philosophy.

The Ashers refused to bake a cake that proclaimed a message in support of same-sex marriage, which they do not support, and therefore have been found to have discriminated. Yet no one would object to a baker who refused to bake a cake with the words ‘Save Ulster from Sodomy‘ on it, or something otherwise lewd or offensive (or perhaps one of the Prophet Mohammed – now there’s an idea).

All the arguments justifying this ruling so far seem to involve variations of ‘the Ashers are homophobes’, as if liberalism, like the rule of law generally, is simply there to protect people we like or agree with; or ‘they should obey the law’, as if that in itself makes it right.