Posted on 04/25/2015 7:20:29 AM PDT by Mrs. Don-o
The Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industry (BOLI) completed its case against Sweet Cakes by Melissa, a Gresham bakery that refused to make a wedding cake for a lesbian couple planning to marry.
The bakery was fined $135,000.
Following the decision Sweet Cakes immediately started a GoFundMe page and raised over $100,000 before it was shut down.
As for the decision, BOLI issued the following statement on Friday regarding the agency’s Proposed Order in the Sweet Cakes case: “The facts of this case clearly demonstrate that the Kleins' unlawfully discriminated against the Complainants. Under Oregon law, businesses cannot discriminate or refuse service based on sexual orientation, just as they cannot turn customers away because of race, sex, disability, age or religion. Our agency is committed to fair and thorough enforcement of Oregon civil rights laws, including the Equality Act of 2007.”
In the Proposed Order, the administrative law judge awards $60,000 in damages to Laurel Bowman-Cryer and $75,000 in damages to Rachel Bowman-Cryer for emotional suffering stemming directly from unlawful discrimination. The amounts are less than what was sought by administrative prosecutors.
After the decision was announced Sweet Cakes started a GoFundMe page and was said to have $ 109,000 in just a few short hours.
Lisa Watson, of Cupcake Jones, started her own campaign to contact GoFundMe and report the campaign as being in violation of their terms of service. Watson’s own post on Facebook stated, “this business has been found GUILTY OF DISCRIMINATION and is being allowed to fundraise to pay their penalty. The gofundme terms of service address hate speech, bigotry, criminal activity, and sexism among other things in their campaign…The amount of money they have raised in a matter of a few hours by thousands of anonymous cowards is disgusting.”
Late on Friday GoFundMe stopped the Sweet Cakes campaign. Via GoFundMe: "After careful review by our team, we have found the "Support Sweet Cakes By Melissa" campaign to be in violation of our Terms and Conditions. The money raised thus far will still be made available for withdrawal. While a different campaign was recently permitted for a pizzeria in Indiana, no laws were violated and the campaign remained live. However, the subjects of the "Support Sweet Cakes By Melissa" campaign have been formally charged by local authorities and found to be in violation of Oregon state law concerning discriminatory acts. Accordingly, the campaign has been disabled."
Christians found guilty of thought crimes are not allowed to raise funds for their legal issues...in other words, depriving them of any legal defense.
Meanwhile, Mumia Abu Jamal is CONVICTED of murder, but given the benefit of fundraising for his legal defense.
How long before Christians CONVICTED of a thought crimes are summarily beheaded on the beaches?
Sounds like GoFundMe should be called GoF***Me.
Belief Crime: acting out of conscience or long held religious belief. Belief Crimes are only committed by individuals who supply flowers, cakes, chairs, and pizzas for weddings. The goal of individuals who are the victims of Belief Crime is not to receive flowers, cakes, chairs, or pizzas. It is to frighten and silence opposition. Nothing is more tolerant than the naked brutal power of the state and those who wield it against others....
Checks made to “Klein Family Support?”
What a nonsense decision. Laurel suffered only 80% of what Rachel suffered and therefore received 25% less in restitution.
Are they sure it wasn’t 79% or 81% of the suffering of Rachel?
With what emotional suffering measurement device did they measure?
Note that the unconstitutional admin law judge laid it out like it was a compromise. Sick and wholly unacceptable.
Neither feds, nor states. This is a terrible decision on top of other terrible decisions. The Right to Freedom of Association is absolute as regards the private actions of a free people. Government should not be able to discriminate, but then we have way too much government already.
Doesn’t matter, GoFundMe is a business found in a great many places. The real issue is not using GoFundMe to raise money, because GoFundMe can shut down anything involving fundraising for what they consider “the wrong cause” anywhere. I am not sure how the family is ever going to be able to afford that, or their life.
Got that info here: http://www.wweek.com/portland/blog-31290-sweet_cakes_by_melissa_writes_about_previously_ref.html
It looks like donations may not go specifically to the Kleins...
“If you want to help Aaron and Melissa and other Christians deal with blatant discrimination, make a donation to our “Persecuted Christians—USA” fund below.”
Phone number of the sanctimonious haters at Cupcake Jones....503.222.4404
....Or end up having to do some “locking and loading.”
It’s a case of Cruel and Unusual Punishment. Who buys a wedding cake for $135,000 from a small business bakery? Not only that, that’s multiplying the expense of mine and many others’ entire wedding receptions! FTR, I don’t even feel that someone who would refuse service to me deserves to be charged that much.
Are you sure about that?
The 99% problem is the feds who have long since abandoned their constitutional chains and limitations. The Constitution is pointed directly at the feds, not the states.
The feds are behind almost every instance of wrongful and unconstitutional interference of our lives with a long list of horribles like banning prayer and the Bible in public schools, forced integration, “affirmative action” and quotas, prohibition of state anti-abortion laws, restraints on religious free exercise, and now, interfering with state anti-gay marriage laws and individuals’ rights to choose and discriminate.
Focus on the feds. They are the BIG problem. Kill the unconstitutional 80% portion of the feds, and you’ve killed the beast.
Can anybody tell me the difference between tyranny and what is happening here?
If Occupy Wall Street were asking for money on GoFundMe, would it be shut down? Isn’t loitering against the law?
[[In the Proposed Order, the administrative law judge awards $60,000 in damages to Laurel Bowman-Cryer and $75,000 in damages to Rachel Bowman-Cryer for emotional suffering stemming directly from unlawful discrimination.]]
Perhaps we men can all demand that all women organizations accept us as members, and allow us to use the same restrooms, and same shower facilities as their members do, and when we get denied, we can sue for emotional damage due to unlawful discrimination
This is what the Nazis did to the Jews. Force their businesses to close, put them out of business, fire them from their jobs, make it so they can’t support their families. All under the appropriate set of laws to make it seem legal.
Then they passed laws to make the Jews themselves illegal, which allowed for the imprisonment and death of “undesirables.”
Welcome to “post-Christian” America.
Well God still says.
Romans 1:..
22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools.. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.
Note also that Romans 1:32 points out that those who approve of such conduct are just as guilty as those who engage in it.
Lev 18:22 “You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination....
25‘For the land has become defiled, therefore I have brought its punishment upon it, so the land has spewed out its inhabitants.”
You hit the nail right on the head. There is NO DIFFERENCE.
A BIG "SCREW YOU" to OREGON and their COMMUNIST regime.
A Cat 5 hurricane with twisters and the precursor dark clouds rolling in with occassional flashes of lightning.
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