Posted on 10/05/2015 1:38:47 PM PDT by markomalley
Melissa and Aaron Klein of Oregon, who were ordered by a state agency to pay two women $135,000 after they refused to take part in their same-sex wedding plans, may now face seizure of their assets. An administrative judge fined the couple after they declined to bake a cake for the lesbian couple, citing their religious objections. The fine was ordered by the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries, which had accused the Klein couple of violating the Oregon Equality Act of 2007. According to reports, the agency is docketing the judgement and is exploring various options for collection.
Docketing the judgment would put it on the records of the court, making it the first step towards seizing the Kleins’ home, property, and other assets in place of their payment of the fine. When ordering the fine, the State of Oregon put a gag order on the Klein family, demanding that they “not to speak “publicly about not wanting to bake cakes for same-sex weddings based on their Christian beliefs.” Bureau Commissioner Brad Avakian said at the time of the finding, “The goal is to rehabilitate…For those who do violate the law, we want them to learn from that experience and have a good, successful business in Oregon.”
The Kleins’ filed a petition for review with the Washington Court of Appeals in July, after Oregon’s final order upheld the $135,000 fine. Attorneys for the family as for a stay, which would have put payment of the fine to the Bureau on hold until after a ruling could be reached on their appeals. However, the Bureau declined. Attorneys for the Bureau told the Klein family to obtain a bond or an irrevocable line of credit.
Melissa Klein said "There’s legal reasons and there’s also kind of personal reasons. If a civil court or a circuit court judge had made this order, I would consider it legally binding. But when a bureaucracy does it and I didn’t get due process, I don’t call it legally binding.”
The Klein family has gotten little sympathy from the State, despite popular fundraising campaigns on their behalf. “It’s difficult to understand the Kleins’ unwillingness to pay the debt when they have, very publicly, raised nearly a half million dollars,” said Bureau spokesman Charlie Burr. He added that they do “not have the right to disregard a legally binding order.”
Aaron Klein disputed Burr’s estimate of the amount garnered in fundraising. “The number they’ve given out is bloated,” he said. “It is not what we have available, it is not what we have on hand, and there are so many variables to where that money has to go, what has to happen with that money, that we’re not touching that money for any purpose because I don’t know what the future holds.”
Don’t pay the courts or the “offended” couple a dime.
Keep the money and move to Texas.
Probably the same mentality that inspired the Umpqua killer.
We live in a lunatic asylum.
We have an evil, enemy government. We have long judged other people who have suffered under tyranny. I guess now it is our turn to see what it is like up close and personal.
I would like to see this appealed into federal courts.
I’m not an attorney, so please bear with me.
But, are their due process rights being violated?
Is a fine of $135,000 for not baking a wedding cake, which I’m sure our nice “lesbian” couple got baked elsewhere, an excessive fine; does the punishment fit the crime? Could this even be an example of cruel and unusual punishment, to be fined so severely for not baking a cake???
Obama and his fellow gangsters are punishing their enemies.
The easy thing would be to pay the $135,000 pocket the difference and move on.
Sounds like they are going to use the difference on the front end to fight... good for them.
I Love her!!
Our betters and masters don’t understand freedom.
Exactly, get out of that liberal hole of a state.
Since much is electronic and not physical, assets can be seized and frozen easily. If physical is in the bank, likewise.
The gay mafia are Nazis, pure and simple. And they now run America.
This kind of crap: overreach of powers that be, blatant violation of representative government, no legal due process, caused a bunch of tea to be tossed in Boston Harbor...
This Brad Avakian needs a new career. I’m thinking he should be Oregon’s new gay outreach representative to ISIS.
And I see no one really helping this couple as the liberals would do.
LOL, make a cake so unappetizing, that word will spread in the homosexual community not to go to that bakery.
I’ve heard some suggest that, if confronted with homosexuals demanding wedding services, that you inform them that you are a Christian or religious or family oriented business, and that you make charitable donations to family organizations. Since the liberal leftist homosexuals abhor such organizations, they would supposedly take their business elsewhere, so as not to contribute to groups such as Focus on the Family through giving business to someone who supports them.
“Re-education”? Sounds fun!!!
Will there be a “camp” that we can go to?
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