Posted on 11/16/2016 2:17:04 PM PST by Impala64ssa
You’ve seen the story multiple times already: a Christian baker declines to cater a gay wedding, and gets sued in the process. The most publicized came out of Oregon, where the bakery Sweet Cakes by Melissa chose not to bake a wedding for a same-sex wedding.
Rachel Bowman-Cryer and her mother visited Sweet Cakes planning to order a wedding cake. Bowman-Cryer had purchased a cake previously from the Kleins for her mother’s sixth wedding. Bowman-Cryer wanted to have the same cake she had purchased for her mother. That’s when Aaron Klein asked what the name of the bride and groom were.
“It’s two brides,” Bowman-Cryer said.
‘I think we may have wasted your time,” Aaron Klein told Bowman-Cryer. “We don’t do same-sex weddings.”
That answer led to a complaint with the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries, and what happened as a result? As the Conservative Tribune reported, In 2013, Oregon Democrat Brad Avakian, as commissioner of the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries, put a Christian bakery out of business because its owners stood up for their religious convictions.
Sweetcakes by Melissa, owned by Melissa and Aaron Klein, was forced out of business by Avakian and the BOLI in 2013. Klein told Independent Journal Review that they were fined $135,000 and the state garnished their bank accounts to cover it. When all was said and done, Klein said that the state took $144,000 from them.
In the Red tsunami that swept the nation last Tuesday, however, justice was served to the politician behind putting the bakery out of business.
Fast forward to 2016 and Avakian, not unlike many of his fellow Democrats, got served a big slice of sweet justice. The people of Oregon ended his run for Oregon secretary of state in favor of Republican Dennis Richardson — the first time in 14 years the solidly blue state elected a Republican for state office.
Rob Kremer, an Oregon political analyst, told the Review: “I think people in Oregon were uncomfortable with Avakian’s stated objective of expanding the scope of the secretary of state’s office to broaden a progressive agenda. “While I don’t think the Sweetcakes by Melissa case was the only thing that turned off voters, it was certainly an example people could point to to show that he was abusing his authority.”
In addition to the voters, of all the major newspapers in the very blue state, not a single one offered Avakian its endorsement.
Aaron Klein told the Review: “His losing was a good sign that people don’t agree with somebody who is anti-constitutional to the nth degree. He never recognized our religious constitutional rights in his office. He just ignored them. And then he went off-kilter with ideas about what he wanted to do in his new office.”
Good riddance! And Sweet Cakes is still appealing their lawsuit to the Oregon Supreme Court, so they may rise again as Avakian falls out of employment.
[Note: This post was written by The Analytical Economist]
“IF, and I mean, if, you go to gay blogs, you will see the occasional gay guy with a brain suggest that forcing people to make cakes is inviting spit/urine and other things into the batter. It can happen. It happens in restaurants every day when the guest is obnoxious.”
Yes, and the remark “this cake tastes like $hit” takes on a whole new meaning!
Portland, Eugene, and a few other college towns along I-5. That’s about it. It’s the same here in Washington. Scratch out King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties and it would be a whole different ball game.
I don’t consider it justice either. Honest hardworking people were put out of business because they hold a religious belief. Remember, hitlery said religious beliefs would have to change.
This was a case of two bakers refusing to bow down to an abuse of power having the “coat tails.” Their courage is the inspiration.
Trump did not trigger the revolt by people sick and tired this kind of abuse of power against mom and pop businesses, he simply rode a wave of rage that’s been building through several elections.
Thank you for posting jonascord.
What’s worse? Low-information Oregon State officials unthinkingly violating constitutionally enumerated rights which Oregon educational institutions are evidently not teaching, or low-information citizens who have not been taught about constitutionally enumerated right getting their rights trampled?
Since citizens are the ones to suffer the damage of getting their rights trampled, I’m going to blame the victim and argue that the burden is on citizens to learn their rights by doing their own research, citizens evidently failing to do so.
He's got a tiger by the ears now. He doesn't like it, and he can't let go. If he tries to stop the "demonstrations", he will lose his liberal chops, and won't be able to go to the next "Leftist Mayors" dinner. If he doesn't, he will be a former mayor, perhaps before the inauguration.
These riots are bleeding the downtown businesses, already in trouble because of all the beggars and metal cases you have to walk around, the derelict camps on every piece of open grass. These days, you are screwed tight if you have a full bladder around Pioneer Square, for lack of public bathrooms.
Portland actually has one of the few active walkaround downtown shopping districts in the United States. Macy's, Brooks Bros, Nike, REI, upscale restaurants like Ruth's Chris. These thugs are spoiling all that, screwing up the light rail and bus system, whose nexus is right there, jamming up the interstates for an already painful evening commute. Portland is a blue island in a red state, that has, so far, been able to enforce it's dictatorship over the rest of the state. We'll see how it lasts.
Any reason besides political parties as to why Mayor Hale encouraged anti-Trump protests?
I’d advocated that the bakers rebrand as edible medium artists. Nobody can argue that a painter or sculptor can be compelled to take any commissioned artwork. Yet photographers and bakers can be. If those two specialists were to render custom works of art instead of commercial products, (I’d argue) they’d be free to decline any proposal.
Last year, Greenpeace protestors actually hung from ropes from the St John's Bridge, to block the channel of the river, to block a Shell Oil ice breaker. It jammed up traffic on the river and over the bridge for miles. Hales seemed good with it.
His police don't seem to want to get involved, and we are seeing the Mexican gangs move in to take advantage of the open attitude for legal pot. There are more shootings, now, than in the last years. The town is eyeball deep in college "artists", and you can't find an engineer to save your soul.
The Leftists are perfectly willing to destroy the economy, to block coal shipments, an oil pipeline, rail traffic, ship traffic. Even belief in Chem-trails and gluten free candy is popular here.
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