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Posted on 02/15/2015 11:45:31 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
(CNSNews.com) – An administrative law judge in Oregon has ruled against Melissa Klein’s effort to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a lesbian couple after Klein declined to make their wedding cake because of her biblical belief that marriage is the sacred union of one man and one woman. A hearing in March will now determine what fines will be levied against Klein for “damages” suffered by the lesbians.
Attorneys for Klein, owner with her husband Aaron Klein of Sweet Cakes by Melissa in Gresham, Ore., had sought to have the case dismissed and to be awarded $200,000 in legal costs and damages.
But Judge Alan McCullough refused and instead issued an interim order ahead of the March hearing that says the Kleins had “unlawfully discriminated against the same-sex couple by denying them full and equal access to a place of public accommodation,” under the Oregon Equality Act, according to The Oregonian.
Paul Thompson, the attorney representing the lesbians, told The Oregonian he was happy with the ruling.
But Anna Harmon, one of three attorneys representing the Kleins, said in an email to The Oregonian that the judge’s ruling wrongly interpreted the state law, which she said protects “the right not to design and create a work of art celebrating an event which violates the tenets of [the Klein’s] religion.”
“This is a wrong and dangerous result for religious liberty and rights of conscience in Oregon,” Harmon said.
The Rev. Franklin Graham, president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and the international Christian relief organization Samaritan's Purse, posted a Facebook comment about the judge’s Jan. 29 ruling.
“I am outraged that today an Oregon judge ruled against Christian bakery owners Aaron and Melissa Klein of Sweet Cakes, who refused to bake a cake for a lesbian wedding,” said Rev. Graham. “Aaron and Melissa were simply living up to their convictions—they did not want to participate in the wedding ceremony based on their belief in the biblical definition of marriage.”
“[The Kleins] have been forced to move their business to their home due to harassment from gay activists, and now the fines may completely bankrupt them,” he said. “I pray that they will fight this all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary, and that we as freedom-loving Americans would stand behind them with our prayers and financial support.”
Family Research Council President tony Perkins, commenting on the Kleins’ case and other similar battles, said, “Unfortunately for the parents of five, wedding vendors like them may soon have no choice. In the free market, the courts no longer seem to recognize the right to believe what you want. Owners of small businesses like Sweet Cakes by Melissa, Arlene's Flowers, Simply Elegant Wedding Planning, Hands On Originals, and others are seen as nothing more than tools of the government to think and believe as the state sees fit. If they refuse, as Aaron and Melissa have done, Oregon is threatening to bring the full weight of the government to bear.”
We are the "new Rome", and we are following the path of the old Rome. We will come to the same result.
A simple solution for the bakery owners is to have taken the order and subcontracted it to another baker or bakery who specializes in gay wedding cakes. Just tell the customer you cannot bake the cake for whatever reason (including religious beliefs), but you’ll have it special ordered for them and directly delivered to their wedding.
Whether anyone knows it or not, the bakery business employs many gay and lesbian cooks. many who would be proud to handle a special order of this nature. It shouldn’t be too hard to find one.
The two lesbos and the judge would never go for such a simple solution. It is obvious their intent is to inflict as much financial damage and humiliation on the Christians business owners for their religious beliefs. And they are twisting and misinterpreting the Oregon business laws to justify their case.
I know many will argue that the bakery owner’s beliefs are compromised even by subcontracting the cake order to someone else. I don’t believe they are condoning a sin by doing this. Instead, I think they wish to avoid judgement of the sinners and do not wish to be a part of the sin by baking them a cake. It’s a fine line either way. I wonder how King Solomon would have ruled in this situation?
But subcontracting is legal in Oregon as far as I know unless prohibited by some obscure law. It is an alternate way of delivering a service or product when there are reasons why the business owners cannot fill the order themselves. The bakery owners should never be forced by law to sell or deliver a product that is not in their best interests.
Everyone should find a secular baker and request a devil cake that says LGBT Activists will burn in hell
I will NEVER be able to understand who would eat a cake that they had forced someone to bake for them....good grief, it could, and probably would, contain anything.....and the pleasure of informing them of that fact AFTER the party would be all the reward I needed!!!
I lived in Medford in the south.
As a rebuttal to this idea, I present to you the wisdom of Rudyard Kipling.
IT is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation,
To call upon a neighbour and to say:—
“We invaded you last night—we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away.”And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you’ve only to pay ’em the Dane-geld
And then you’ll get rid of the Dane!It is always a temptation to a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say:—
“Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away.”And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we’ve proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray,
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say:—“We never pay any one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost,
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that plays it is lost!”
This is not about the cake. This is about forcing someone to accept homosexuality and do it's bidding against their own personal convictions.
This is about forcing homosexuality down people's throats, and using the law as the weapon to do it.
From the article:
The Court found that “the Constitution and Canons of TEC have no provisions which state that a member diocese cannot voluntarily withdraw its membership.” The ruling found that had there been such a provision, it would have violated the Diocese’s “constitutionally-protected right” to freedom of association. “With the freedom to associate goes its corollary, the freedom to disassociate,” Judge Goodstein said.
This woman was exercising her freedom to disassociate when she chose not to bake a cake for a purpose she did not agree with.
She should take this to the Supreme hunt on First Amendment grounds. Apparently, South Carolina's freedom to disassociate is Oregon's discrimination.
-PJ
If you would like more information about what's happening in Oregon, please FReepmail me.
I lost my Oregon list when my computer crashed last year, so please send me your name by FReepmail if you want to be on this list.
It is only fine to discriminate against Christians’ faith.
Pray America is waking
In short, anyone brought before one of these fictitious judges in Oregon, is being railroaded by the government.
It is a system which needs to be scrapped.
Thanks for the rebuttal. I understand Kipling’s message not to gather tribute and pay a tax to the outside invaders hoping they will go away and leave us alone. It is a good idea with which I agree. But I believe this an issue between the state and our Constitutional right to express our religious beliefs. Therefore consider the following choices:
From a Christian perspective, it would be applicable for the bakery owners not to “give tribute” to the sinners and to resist the state if they feel they are being forced to commit a sin. They must follow their religious beliefs above all.
But from a business perspective, the bakery owners should have been prepared to render unto Caesar. But now the question has evolved. Do they still have the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason including religious beliefs. Or, can Caesar force them to indiscriminately sell to everybody without exception? It’s a devil of a question our judges must decide.
My idea was only meant to help the bakery owners render unto Caesar by passing the buck from one sinner to another. I agree it was not the best idea but I’ll try to outsmart the devil whenever the opportunity arises.
BTW, do you know if Kipling was a Christian or a Muslim? :)
Good grief, I know what the problem is...I still maintain that if you force someone to do something, for whatever reason, there could be consequences to YOU...
If you force me to bake the queer cake....DON'T EAT IT...
Thanks for the ping!
The state is quickly evolving the "new" religion in this country and it ain't favourable to Christians or Jews. In fact, things may get a lot worse unless we repent as a nation and obey G_D and his laws.
In the meantime, the Anti-Christ and his spirits are busy preparing a new political religious leader mentioned in the end times. Obama gets re-elected for a second term. World War III is about to begin. The Jews of the world will soon be forced back to Israel. Damascus is waiting to be blown away by Israel or us or someone with a nuclear device and a bad attitude. There's more earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and global climate change occurring before our eyes. There's more forest fires and droughts and hurricanes. There's Ebola and other other incurable diseases emerging daily. The stock market is a bubble waiting to burst. The central banks of the world are about to collapse. The dollar is fixing to be worthless. There's soon to be world wide crop failures followed by famine. The land and the sea are polluted. Animals are attacking and eating people. People are living as in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah. Our churches and religious leaders are lukewarm and preach prosperity in place of sound doctrine. The Muslims are trying to behead us. I'm sure I've forgotten something but I think you get my drift. Everyday brings more bad news. If America isn't awake by now, it will never be.
But keep the faith, our Saviour has promised to return for his people and that none will be lost. Rejoice in the signs he has given our generation and know that everyday we are one step closer. And pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
Also note that regardless that constitutionally ignorant, pro-gay activist judges hide behind 14A's Equal Protections clause to attack the Christian faith by legislating gay “rights” from the bench, the Supreme Court had clarified in Minor v. Happersett that 14A added no new protections to the the Constitution. It only strengthens those protections which the states have amended the Constitution to expressly protect. Again, since the states had not amended the Constitution to expressly protect gay “rights” before 14A was ratified, 14A didn’t automatically create such rights as misguided, institutionally indocrinated judges seem to be claiming. Thanks. “3. The right of suffrage was not necessarily one of the privileges or immunities of citizenship before the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, and that amendment does not add to these privileges and immunities. It simply furnishes additional guaranty for the protection of such as the citizen already had [emphasis added].” —Minor v. Happersett, 1874.
The difference, maybe, is that instead of the barbarians being at the gate, they are well entrenched among us.
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero
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