US Supreme Court decision really takes the cake

BOLI investigators said the Kleins' refusal violated the women's civil rights and recommended they pay $75,000 in damages to each woman for emotional suffering. That triggered a conciliation process between the two parties to see if a settlement could be reached. The Kleins and the state, acting on the women's behalf, could not agree, so the case went before Alan McCullough, a BOLI administrative law judge.

During a hearing in March, the lesbian women testified to emotional stress they attributed to their experience with Sweet Cakes as well as the glare of media attention that followed. Rachel Bowman-Cryer also disclosed that she and Laurel felt an even greater level of stress because they were foster parents for two young girls and feared they might lose the children. The couple has since legally adopted the girls, who are now 8 and 6 years old. [The Kleins have five children but their stress apparently counts for nought]

Aaron Klein said his family, too, had suffered because of the case. Reporters came to his home and his shop, he testified, during the March hearing. The Sweet Cakes by Melissa car was vandalized and broken into twice. Photographers and florists severed ties with the company, eventually forcing the Kleins to close their storefront shop in September 2013. The business now operates out of the couple's home in Sandy, with Melissa Klein primarily filling orders for family and friends.

Following the hearing, McCullough recommended $75,000 in damages be awarded to Rachel Bowman-Cryer and $60,000 to Laurel Bowman-Cryer.

The couple held a commitment ceremony in June 2013 and were married in May 2014, shortly after a federal judge struck down Oregon's ban on same-sex marriage.

Though the bakery has been closed for nearly two years, the final order holds the Kleins personally liable for the debt.
Harmon said she doubted the couple has the resources to pay the awarded damages. "I don't have any access to their checkbook, but I can tell you they are living on a garbage man's salary and they have five kids. This is a personal debt. The business is gone."

The plight of the Kleins is relevant to the recommendation by Australia's Human rights Commissioner, Tim Wilson, who suggested in an article in The Australian (6/7/15) that business people who had conscientious objections to providing services for homosexual weddings could be given exemptions if they advertised that they only cater for religious-based heterosexual marriages, but not for civil ceremonies. However many of those who provide wedding services have no objection to catering for heterosexual civil ceremonies. Why should they be excluded from such business opportunities particularly when there would only be a few homosexual civil weddings and these couples can easily organise their cakes, flowers and venues elsewhere?

At least three online attempts to help the Kleins defray their expenses were launched on the heels of McCullough's ruling.The first raised $109,000 on GoFundMe but the account was quickly closed after the company determined the fundraising effort violated its terms of service prohibiting campaigns that benefit individuals or groups facing formal charges or claims of serious violations of the law. Two faith-based nonprofits in North Carolina and Wisconsin continue to accept donations for the couple.

There is a second punishmnt imposed by Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian who has ordered the Kleins to "cease and desist from publishing, circulating, issuing or displaying or causing to be pubished ....any communication to the effect that any of the accommodations... will be refused, withheld, or denied to..."

His order made the Kleins speechless all right -- but not for long. Once the shock wore off, Aaron and Melissa made it quite clear that they wouldn't stop speaking out about their case, no matter what the government threatened. "We will not give up this fight," Aaron wrote on their Facebook page, "and we will not be silenced."

Family Research Council, USA, has warned that if freedom of religion can be trampled, freedom of speech won't be far behind. Aaron and Melissa's attorney Anna Harmon was stunned: "Now he has ruled that the Kleins' simple
statement of personal resolve to be true to their faith is unlawful. This is a brazen attack on every American's right to freely speak and imposes government orthodoxy on those who do not agree with government-sanctioned ideas."

This is reminiscent of the threat by Tasmanian homosexual activist, Rodney Croome, that Hobart's Catholic Bishop Porteous could be hauled before the Anti-Discrimination Commissioner after allegations by Croome and others that Tasmanian Catholic schools have been teaching students Catholic doctrine on marriage. Bishop Porteous had distributed the Australian Catholic Bishops booklet on marriage to students in Catholic schools to be given to their parents.