Posted on 04/28/2016 12:07:55 PM PDT by Rio
The Gresham bakers who made national headlines after refusing to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding are fighting back against Oregon regulators.
In a brief filed in the Oregon Court of Appeals this week, Aaron and Melissa Klein say the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries violated state and federal laws by forcing them to pay $135,000 in damages to the lesbian couple.
The legal team behind Sweet Cakes by Melissa argues the labor bureau violated the Kleins' rights as artists to free speech, their rights as Oregonians to religious freedom and their rights as defendants to a due process.
They also argue the fine was excessive and that Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian, who praised an LGBTQ advocacy group on Facebook the year before the hearing, should have recused himself.
"There is little to be said for [the bureau's] interpretation" of the law, the Kleins' attorneys wrote in a 615-page brief. "It lacks support in statute or precedent, equates being gay with a celebration rejected by many gay people, and forces people to convey messages against their will and religious beliefs — all while, at a minimum, raising serious constitutional questions."
And the Kleins' court fight, though based in Oregon, could have national implications. At a time when North Carolina and Mississippi have passed laws allowing businesses to refuse service to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender customers, the Kleins have challenged a decade-old Oregon law that prevents that kind of discrimination.
That means whatever happens to the Kleins here could ultimately shape what happens to florists, photographers and bakers across the country.
"This case gives us pause, as does what we see happening across the country," said Jeanna Frazzini, co-director of LGBTQ advocacy group Basic Rights Oregon. "It's really been striking the way the Kleins have become poster children for this movement across the country that aims to undermine the very basic civil rights and human dignity of LGBT people."
The controversy began three years ago when Rachel Bowman-Cryer and her mother, Cheryl McPherson, visited the bakery to test cakes for Bowman-Cryer's upcoming wedding.
Bowman-Cryer had purchased a cake from Sweet Cakes by Melissa before, but this time, Aaron Klein turned her away. Klein said his company didn't bake cakes for same-sex weddings.
Rachel Bowman-Cryer said during the BOLI hearing that the experience left her "humiliated and ashamed and destroyed and questioning — questioning whether anybody or not would accept us as a married couple."
She and her wife, Laurel Bowman-Cryer, filed complaints with Oregon's Bureau of Labor and Industries.
An administrative judge ruled the Kleins had violated an Oregon law that bans discrimination against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in jobs and in places that serve the public.
Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian ordered the Kleins last year to pay the Bowman-Cryer's damages for emotional and mental suffering.
"This case is not about a wedding cake or a wedding," Avakian, now a candidate for Oregon secretary of state, wrote in his final order. "It is about a business's refusal to serve someone because of their sexual orientation. Under Oregon law, that is illegal. Within Oregon's public accommodations law is the basic principle of human decency that any person, regardless of their sexual orientation, has the freedom to fully participate in society."
The Kleins have said all along they planned to appeal. And the brief repeats many of the arguments the Kleins made earlier in the case. It focuses on big ideas — such as the freedom of religion — as much as it does on small details, including posts on Avakian's Facebook page.
The appeal "continues to drag out a case that has been extremely painful for the (lesbian) couple involved," Frazzini said.
The Sweet Cakes case was one of several religious freedom disputes tried last year as part of a national debate that's intensified since a June 2015 U.S. Supreme Court decision established same-sex marriage as a constitutional right.
Last month, the Washington State Supreme Court agreed to hear the case of florist Barronelle Stutzman, a Richmond, Wash. woman who refused to provide flowers for a longtime customer's same-sex ceremony.
And on Monday, the Colorado Supreme Court declined to take an appeal from a Denver-area "cake artist" who'd been ordered to make desserts for same-sex weddings.
But few defendants have attracted as much notoriety as the Kleins. Donors from across the country have contributed more than half a million dollars to the Gresham couple. And in February, a former lawyer for President George H.W. Bush, took over their case. C. Boyden Gray, working with nonprofit law firm First Liberty, will represent the Kleins at no cost.
First Liberty senior counsel Ken Klukowski said the Kleins asked his Plano, Texas, firm to take on their case. He agreed because he believes theirs "is an issue of paramount importance for the nation."
"This is one of the most important cases in the country regarding how religious liberty is going to coexist in our society with new attitudes regarding marriage," Klukowski told The Oregonian/OregonLive in February. "The first amendment guarantees every person fundamental right to free speech and the free exercise of religion, how you act out your faith -- not just the words you say."
God Bless them! Praying it turns out well for that Christian couple, which means it turns out well for us...all Christians are under attack.
I agree that this case is fundamental. Its outcome will tell us with clarity whether or not this is still a free country. I fully expect the Kleins to lose bigtime.
Forcing others to celebrate your lifestyle choices is not a "very basic civil right."
Free speech can now "undermine the dignity of LGBT people," and the undermining of dignity is now a criminal act.
make the cake with salt identifying as sugar...
think they might mind.
it’s the same thing.
Who knows. Christians and others who want to avoid this may end up being forced to take such businesses into the realm of ministries, though again this sounds strange next to the Hobby Lobby policy and the USSC might be willing to nudge the lever a little to the right rather than risk a populist revolt (specially with Donald Trump breathing down their necks).
We should pray of course “for kings and all who are in authority that we might live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.”
None of this nonsense will knock God off of His throne. If He permits the devil to challenge, it is for a good ultimate reason.
Wow, and all of that from refusing to inscribe a cake that they could have gotten inscribed down the street.
This should be a huge warning sign about what that faction wants. They want to “victimidate” society into a corner.
Could they just bake a plain cake and let the pervs decorate it themselves? I’m sure pervs could do a fabulous job together just the way they like it.
And frankly... even America’s black slaves (which really WAS an evil position to put humans into) didn’t complain like this at a lot of things that were worse. It took the white liberal to teach them how to do that.
What a crock of crap!
If the Klein version is to be believed (and they'd never been caught in a lie, unlike the plaintiff), they not only were polite in turning away this business, but they gave the dyke a couple of recommendations of places which would be happy to serve her.
Rather than go there, the ACLU conspired with the dyke to sponsor her complaint and destroy the Klein's business knowing that they had ace in the hole at the top of the Oregon state government.
This case isn't about getting a service, it is about breaking a business to the government saddle regardless of the consequences.
I was in a seminar in Austria last year on religious freedom and they were asking me about this case and about the woman who wouldn’t sign the marriage certificates. arrrrgggg. I forgot her name. Davis?
There’s a reason why past civilizations used to put sexual deviants to death and now we’re discovering that reason all over again. Like the Muslims these people inexplicably ally themselves with these people cannot merely live in peace with everyone else. They have to destroy everything in their path and degrade and befoul it until the entire world is just as depraved as they are.
The comments at the article are overflowing with hate-filled remarks towards the Kleins. What nasty, bitter, evil people these commentators are.
What's next? We probably will find out all too soon.
If/when they lay a claim on my children I start shooting. Period.
Ive always believed the “art” aspect of the product would be the saving grace for these people. After all, who could argue that a painter or a sculptor is free to decline a particular commissioned piece? But aren’t these cakes simply an edible canvas upon which an artist adds his decorative and commissioned creation?
Mark my words: Pedophilia.
Will the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries order the gay caterer to pay Westboro Baptist Church $135,000 in damages?
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