LONDON (Reuters) - A Northern Irish bakery that refused to bake a cake iced with a pro-gay slogan won a bid to overturn its prosecution for discrimination on Wednesday after Britain's Supreme Court allowed its appeal.
Ashers Baking in Belfast was found guilty of discrimination in 2015 for refusing to make a cake bearing the words "Support Gay Marriage" and a picture of characters Bert and Ernie from the television show Sesame Street on account of its owners' Christian beliefs.
"This conclusion is not in anyway to diminish the need to protect gay people and people who support gay marriage," said Brenda Hale, President of the Supreme Court.
"It is deeply humiliating and an affront to human dignity to deny someone the service because of that person's race, gender, sexual orientation, religion or belief but that is not what happened in this case."
(Reporting by Padraic Halpin; editing by Michael Holden)