The Christian owners of Ashers Bakery were found to have discriminated by refusing to make a product iced with the slogan Support Gay Marriage.

The order was placed by gay rights activist Gareth Lee in May 2014 and was the subject of a Supreme Court appeal in Belfast this week.

His barrister Robin Allen QC said: “This is what was a relatively small incident in his life which has become enormously significant and continues to be so.

“That is a heavy burden to bear for one individual.”

The Ashers legal action has run for four years and attracted enormous attention.

The original case against the McArthur family, who own Ashers and enjoy the backing of the Christian Institute lobby group, was taken by Mr Lee with the support of Northern Ireland’s
Equality Commission.

The bakers lost in the lower courts.

Mr Allen said the Commission was seeking “legal certainty” and stepped in because only a millionaire could afford to litigate this case.

“In the context of this case it is super-difficult because in relation to the provision of goods, facilities and services you are talking about a prohibition on discrimination on transactions which may range from a box of matches up to a long-term contract.

“In many cases, particularly true in a divided community, prohibition in relation to goods and services is a task which is difficult to police through a commission or…

Speaking to the Shropshire Star, the Northamptonshire vicar said “there’s a lot of things churches do that aren’t celebrated”.

However, he added: “It would be quite misleading to suggest the Church is not in crisis though.

“But out of crises new things can form, and we’re quite good at forming new things out of crises.”

The former popstar and Strictly Come Dancing contestant also opened up about the difficulty he has in balancing his life in the media and maintaining relationships with people in his church.

“I manage it very badly,” he said.

“I’m half-time in my parish, although really there’s no such thing as half-time because people don’t have half-time lives. Half of my time is work in the media. That’s what I always have done. And I try and fit everything in, although sometimes I don’t do it very well.”

Highlighting the importance of the Church being able to turn people’s novelty visits into regular attendance, he said: “We need to reform our relationship with the people around us. In the past the Church was just there – it was just establishment.

“Lots of people like it being there, but in a picturesque relic. It has no future as a picturesque relic.”

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Family members have claimed all of them were abducted by Muslims with the aim of converting them to Islam to marry them.

While all of the disappearances have been reported to the police, their families have accused officials of inaction.

According to World Watch Monitor, some have gone as far as alleging that members of the police force were involved in the disappearances.

Christine Lamie, 26, disappeared after being threatened on Facebook by someone she didn’t know.

Bahaa Girgis, the husband to the mother-of-two told World Watch Monitor about the messages.

“Christine received a threatening message on Facebook from someone she didn’t know, saying ‘I will not leave you, Christine, I will take you even on the last day of my life’.”

After reporting his wife missing he said when he went to the station four days later for an update.

“I was surprised when the officer there told me that my wife Christine had gone to a police station the day before, filed a report that she wasn’t kidnapped and that she converted to Islam by her full will,” Girgis told World Watch Monitor.

“I know my wife very well – she would not convert to Islam by her will. She likes Christianity and she is very religious.

“She was forced to convert to Islam after she was kidnapped,” he added.

“She was pressured and threatened to make her do so.”

Briskam Raafat…

Rev Dr Iain Greenshields said the Presbytery of Dunfermline “abhorred” the actions of someone who laid out strips of bacon on a door handle at Dunfermline Central Mosque and on the doorstep.

Dr Greenshields said: “Over the last few years we have worked alongside our Muslim neighbours to foster a spirit of co-operation and mutual respect.

“We believe much of this [the intolerance] is sparked by social media and belongs only to a small minority who themselves have no strong or personal religious convictions.”

Dunfermline Central Mosque called the incident a “deliberate symbol of hatred chosen as Muslims and Jews do not eat pork.”

It also attributed the act to “hatred driven via social media” but acknowledged that only a minority of people in the area would endorse such behaviour.

“Its a shame that a minority within society want to only promote hatred and fear, who refuse to engage and get to know us, but we do recognise it is just a minority of people with this hatred of others,” the mosque said in a Facebook post.

Dr Greenshields said the Church will write a letter to all schools in the area urging them to teach against social media hate campaigns during their assemblies.

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