(As posted to my Gazette blog on July 10)

Hmm . . . I’m not going to let myself get drawn into the “gay cake row” going on in Northern Ireland –  quick recap: baker refuses on religious principle to make cake with picture of two Sesame Street characters and “support gay marriage” message, setting off an uproar in the U.K. in which everyone has an opinion, people are taking sides, barristers are making money and even political columnists are weighing in (see column by Liam Clarke in Belfast Telegraph).

Because, really everyone, there is some serious crap happening around the world these days. Think Israel-Palestine, Iraq, Sudan, Nigeria, Central Africa . . . you know, real human misery. People are killing each other. People are being displaced. People are starving to death. Millions upon millions of people are suffering . . .

So, the “cake row” is really much ado about one shopkeeper allegedly committing an act of commercial discrimination. Much ado about very little, and not worthy of such an uproar. Talk about misplaced priorities . . .

These are typically the dog days of summer, when the media stretches to fill space in its publications because there is not a lot of news to report. Except this summer, there is much more international news — very bad news — than we really want to hear. Maybe that’s why some media across the pond are playing up the cake story, because the other news is so cruel and unbearable . . . I dunno . . .

But as the death toll mounts in aforementioned countries . . . as more and more innocent children and their mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters die in ways people should not be dying in this modern age, one has to wonder how so many affluent people and publications have become preoccupied with the “gay cake” story.

Perhaps the day will come when the survivors in the world’s suffering nations will have the luxury of eating cake again.

— Jillian