Northern Ireland’s First Minister Arlene Foster has said faith communities are feeling a “chill factor” resulting from the upheld discrimination judgement against Ashers Bakery. Focusing on the criticism levelled by the Court of Appeal on the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland (ECNI) following its lack of assistance to Ashers’ owners, the McArthur family, Ms Foster said: “It is incumbent upon the Equality Commission to indicate to the Executive how it intends to remedy what has been pointed out to it by the court and what affirmative action it intends to take in terms of faith communities…there is certainly a chill factor there for faith communities. That is communicated to me weekly, and the commission have to take notice of it. I have to ask this question: where is the balance in dealing with faith communities in Northern Ireland? It is something I will be asking the Equality Commission to comment directly and give me some feedback on that.”
