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THE MUDDLE OVER THE ‘GAY CAKE’

May 7, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the row in debate about Ashers, the Northern Irish bakers that refused to make a cake with a pro-gay marriage slogan, was the main part of my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the changing attitudes of left and right towards the House of Lords.) It was published in the Observer, 6 May 2018, under the headline ‘The ‘gay cake’ fight: why the bakers had a right to refuse this order’. […]

Categories: Britain, Justice & Liberties, Politics • Tags: ashers, censorship, discrimination, equality, free speech, gay cake, gay marriage, gay rights, northern ireland, peter tatchell, religious freedom

ON GAY MARRIAGE, RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AND WILD HYSTERIA

January 18, 2013 by Kenan Malik

The European Court of Human Rights ruling this week on four cases of conflict over religious rights, and the continuing controversy in Britain, France and elsewhere on proposals to legalize gay marriage, shows the ongoing battle over how we should define religious freedom. I wrote a long post on this question last year, trying to establish some fundamental ground rules from first principles. Here I want to address one issue that has become prominent in recent weeks: the claim by […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion • Tags: catholicism, christianity, cristina odone, equality, gay rights, religion, religious freedom

NOTES ON RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

June 17, 2012 by Kenan Malik

Given the degree of fractious debate recently over ‘religious freedom’ – from questions of blasphemy and ‘defamation’ to the storm over gay marriage, from the controversy over the banning of the burqa to the hostility directed at the ‘Obamacare’ plan to include contraception in health insurance cover – I have been rethinking the question of freedom of religion. These notes are a starting point for debate, not a fully-fleshed out argument. 1 Religious freedom occupies a special place in contemporary political […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion • Tags: christianity, equality, ethics, free speech, gay rights, locke, religion, religious freedom, secularism, spinoza