Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,

Aaron and Melissa Klein

I’ve been writing about the plight of Aaron and Melissa Klein, Christian former bakers in Oregon, since 2015:

07-15: The Mental Rape And Sadness Of Wedding Cakes

07-15: Gay Cake Wars: Episode II

07-15: Oregon: Stark Raving Mad

07-15: Bernie Goldberg: The Right To Gay Wedding Cakes

06-18: Cake Wars: A Temporary Small Victory

07-15: Kleins, Cake And the LGBTQWERTY Agenda

In brief, the Kleins ran a bakery, a labor of love, and declined to produce a custom cake for a lesbian wedding.  The entire weight of the national LGBTQWERTY eternal outrage industry descended on them, and an Oregon functionary fined them $135,000 dollars for their inexcusable Christianity, which put them out of business.

The case slowly wound its way to the Supreme Court, and Victoria Taft at PJ Media, in January of 2022, updates us:

Melissa in her former shop in happier days.
credit: oregonlive.com

In Oregon, Aaron and Melissa Klein have been looking to get their good names back for nearly a decade. Their Sweetcakes by Melissa shop was ruined by the Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI) in 2013… The Kleins were smeared by the media and the Left — the same thing — for refusing to design and bake a wedding cake for a lesbian couple in the days before gay marriage.

BOLI, then run by political hack Brad Avakian, reflexively went to guns and began to pew! pew! pew! at the Christian couple. BOLI fined the Kleins $135,000 claiming their religious rights did not outweigh anti-discrimination rules. Avakian put the Kleins under a gag order and was so unfair and overtly anti-Christian — announcing that Christians needed to be ‘rehabilitated’ in their beliefs — that he lost his next election to a Republican in Oregon.

When even Oregon D/S/Cs think you’ve gone too far, Stalin would likely have been shocked.

The Oregon Court of Appeals now rules that the state agency was unfair and biased in fining the Kleins. The court also noted in the ruling that the mother of one of the women lied about the conversation between her and Aaron Klein which set off the conflagration over the cake in the first place. The mom came back to lecture Aaron Klein about how she’d overcome her religious adversity to gay marriage. They swapped scriptures and had a good talk. Mom went back to the couple and claimed that Klein had called her daughter an ‘abomination.’ The court canceled the fines but remanded the case to BOLI to reassess it.

Stephanie Taub of First Liberty Counsel said the ruling makes no sense, saying ‘the court admits the state agency that acted as both prosecutor and judge, in this case, was biased against the Kleins’ faith.’ She continued, ‘yet, despite this anti-Christian bias that infected the whole case, the court is sending the case back to the very same agency for a do-over. Today’s opinion should have been the end of this 10-year-long saga.’ She concluded that ‘it’s time for the state of Oregon’s hostility toward Aaron and Melissa to end.’

First Liberty has a website with updates on the case here.

Talk about victimless crimes.  In refusing to violate their sincere Christian beliefs, the Kleins harmed no one.  There are many other bakers who would make a cake for gay and/or lesbians.  That was never the issue.  The Kleins refused to do as lesbians demanded, so they had to be punished.  The exercise of individual rights does not compel others to act against their interests, but not if Oregon has anything to say about it.

My right to free speech does not require NBC News to give me an hour of air time, free or not.  My right to property does not force the owners of a home I covet to turn it over to me.  Nor should any sane person believe they can force a baker to do their will.

The business Oregon and the LGBTQWERTY eternal outrage industry destroyed.                                credit: oregonlive.com

This is not about the vindication of a fundamental liberty.  There is no express Constitutional right to gay marriage (yes, I know, the Supreme Court found something like that lurking in emanations of penumbras), and there is certainly no right to compel bakers to make a cake for such an event.  But where the LGBQWERTY eternal outrage industry is concerned, it is not enough that LGBQWERTY folks/whatevers be left alone to do as they please.  The Kleins–virtually all Americans–are willing to do that, and expect the same courtesy.  No, all must overtly and loudly praise them for their superior morality and intellects, all must praise the brilliance and rightness of their sexual desires, and must serve them in any way they demand. They not only claim more rights than Normal Americans, they have superior rights, rights that override the insignificant rights of lesser beings.  You know, express rights like the First Amendment.

This is particularly true in D/S/C ruled states like Oregon.

As Taub wrote, the Oregon Supreme Court’s ruling would be inexplicable everywhere but Oregon and other D/S/C states.  There, it’s the status quo.  BOLI exceeded its authority, was biased against the Kleins because of their Christian faith, and harmed them, so the case must be sent back to BOLI so they can do it again.  The process is the punishment, and the punishment continues.  God only knows if the Kleins will ever be out from under the high-heeled boot of the LGBTQWERTY state.