In the European Union there are fundamental laws that make it an offence to discriminate against people on the basis of: gender, religious creed, ethnic background, race, skin-colour, marriage status, sexual-orientation. There is also a category of laws around the issue of hate speech and incitement to hatred. It is against the law to discriminate against a person for being gay, but in general (within reason) it is not against the law to discriminate on the basis of one political background.

It is also fundamental to understanding this case that the bakery in question initially accepted the order for the cake, but later informed the customer that the bakery had changed it's mind and now was refusing to process the order on the basis that for religious reasons they would not make a cake that had anything to do with homosexuals. It was this combination of factors that brought the judge to the conclusion that the bakery was discriminating against the customer on the basis of sexual-orientation and was therefore attempting to put itself above the law.