An administrative law judge for the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries on Friday recommended that the owners of a Portland bakery pay $135,000 to a lesbian couple for refusing to bake their wedding cake.
The proposed order, by administrative law judge Alan McCullough, was released Friday, according to The Oregonian. But the $135,000 number isn’t final. The Kleins have a ten-day window to file objections to the recommended fine, their attorney said. Oregon state labor commissioner Brad Avakian will make the final decision on the amount of damages the couple, Aaron and Melissa Klein, the co-owners of the bakery, must pay in the case.
The $135,000 recommended fine is the latest development in a case that goes back two years and started with the Kleins refusing to bake a wedding cake for Laurel and Rachel Bowman-Cryer. The Kleins cited their religion and opposition to gay marriage in refusing to bake the wedding cake.
In response, Laurel Bowman-Cryer filed an anti-discrimination complaint with the Bureau of Labor and Industry in 2013 arguing that the Sweet Cakes by Melissa violated Oregon’s Equality Act of 2007. In 2014, a Bureau of Labor and Industries found that the Kleins discriminated against the Bowman-Cryers because of their sexual orientation.
The Kleins gained national attention for their refusal to serve the gay couple.
Recently, supporters of the Kleins set up a crowdfunding account at the Samaritan’s Purse website. Seventy-thousand dollars in donations were raised for the Kleins at a GoFundMe crowdfunding website before that website was taken down, according to Oregon’s KOIN and the Associated Press. GoFundMe does not allow fundraising for causes that violate the law.
Over the weekend, The Daily Signal, which was created by the conservative Heritage Foundation, published an exclusive video featuring the Kleins.
“I don’t think we should be able to force anybody to go against their beliefs in this country. I think that we all can live peaceably together without having to force our will on somebody else and that’s what this situation’s really turned into —can somebody force somebody else to do something against their will?” Aaron Klein told The Daily Signal. “And the state of Oregon said yes, you can.”
(Photo credit: Youtube)
Someone needs to sit these two down and explain that this is exactly what they’re doing to other people when they act like this. They are forcing their beliefs on someone else.
What is most delicious? The $135,000 will go to the gay couple. All those rubes donating to the Kleins are enriching the Bowman-Cryers
“I don’t think we should be able to force anybody to go against their beliefs in this country. I think that we all can live peaceably together without having to force our will on somebody else and that’s what this situation’s really turned into —can somebody force somebody else to do something against their will?”
Nobody’s forcing you to bake cakes for the public for a living. Don’t like it? Take your clownshow out of the public accommodations business. Just a helpful hint: running a lunch counters probably isn’t for you either.
Bingo! And I really really hope that the agencies and courts responsible for these types of actions and determining these types of damages start taking the availability of bigot fundraising into account when determining the amount of damages that is reasonable. Frankly, if I were their lawyer, I’d be seeking reconsideration and a ruling that the damages should be whatever gets fundraised plus some other amount, such that these people don’t profit off their bigotry, actually suffer for it and to send the public policy message that the bigotry and discrimination are not profitable and will be costly.
I’ve never understood the logic behind the supposed religious objection to baking a cake for a gay wedding. The bakers don’t object to baking the cake; they object to what the buyers are doing with it after it’s baked. Are we to assume that—under their logic—there’s a general religious exemption if you don’t like what someone’s doing with your product? Should a Jewish knife maker be able to refuse to sell a knife to a person who intends to butcher hogs with it?