Posted on 07/18/2015 2:45:16 PM PDT by Kaslin
Sweet Cakes by Melissa owners Aaron and Melissa Klein had the audacity to defend their religious beliefs two years ago, and they suffered mightily. When a lesbian couple, Laurel and Rachel Bowman-Cryer, requested a cake from the Oregon-based Christian bakers for their wedding, the latter politely declined because doing so would violate the religious edicts they so strongly follow. The Kleins’ religiously motivated decision prompted the gay couple to sue, and the Oregon labor commissioner ruled that the Kleins would have to shell out $135,000 in damages. Thanks to Americans who still cherish religious freedom, however, it appears this Christian family will be more than able to pay that bill.
The Kleins had a fundraising page set up on the crowdfunding website GoFundMe. After pressure from gay marriage activists, site administrators decided to remove the page. Here’s how GoFundMe got away with that after their initial explanation about restricting crowdfunding pages for companies faced with "formal charges in defense of heinous crimes" didn't fly (the Kleins were not charged with a crime):
A few days later, GoFundMe changed the policy to include a ban on “claims of heinous crimes, violent, hateful, sexual or discriminatory acts,” making it easier to remove campaigns for Christian-owned business owners fighting discrimination charges after declining to provide services for gay weddings.
Despite being booted from the website, the Christian bakers still managed to rake in and keep about $109,000 from the fund.
Their campaign was picked up by another crowdfunding site, Continue to Give, and it has lived up to its name. As of today, the campaign has reached about 250 percent of its goal. Here are the astounding figures:
A crowdfunding campaign for the Oregon bakery Sweet Cakes by Melissa has set a site record by raising $352,500 in about two months after being kicked off the GoFundMe website, far exceeding the initial goal of $150,000.
That, reports the Washington Times, is a new crowdfunding record for the website.
A similar scene was played out earlier this year in a small pizza shop in Walkerton, Indiana. After Gov. Mike Pence (R-IN) signed the Religious Freedom and Restoration Act into law, which protects business owners from the government infringing on their religious beliefs, tensions were already high throughout the state. The owners of Memories Pizza became unwanted martyrs in the fight. After telling local news reporters they supported RFRA and could not cater gay weddings because their faith would not allow it, the O’Connors received hate mail - even a death threat - and were forced to close up shop.
In response to the bitter backlash, The Blaze’s Dana Loesch announced she was starting a GoFundMe page for the O’Connors and the response was immediate. The embattled pizza shop owners raked in $35,000 in just four hours (and it seemed the page was permitted to stay active.) Once again, Christian business owners stood up to the backlash - and won.
Both of these instances have proven that lawsuits and threats only make unapologetic Christian businesses stronger.
Now that the Kleins have reached their fundraising goals – and then some – it goes to show that a sizable number of Americans still err on the side of religious liberty.
As for those who are trying to remove the Klein’s crowdfunding page from Continue to Give, founder Jesse Wellhoefer has a simple message:
“Lots of people have been asking us to take it off,” Mr. Wellhoefer said. “Our response has been, ‘Thank you for your concern, have a great day and God bless you.’”
Because it isn’t about a cake.
It is all about going after Christians.
The good news is that thanks to the fundraising effort the bakers have the money to pay the fine. The bad news is that thanks to the fundraising effort the bakers have enough to pay the fine. Absent the fundraising they probably could have declared bankruptcy and cleared the obligation without the plaintiffs getting a dime.
Actually, except for the gag order, which violates Article I Sec. 8 in your extract from the Oregon Constitution, the commissioner’s actions may not have violated the Oregon Constituition.
Freedom of worship and freedom of religious opinion are what the left wants to turn free exercise of religion into, not something that actually determines how you live your life, for instance causing one declining to pay for abortions or to provide artistic or culinary services for something one believes is an abomination. If all Quakers had is freedom of worship and of religious belief, they’d have been thrown in the stockade for living according to their pacifist beliefs during WWII, rather than given jobs as corpsmen. If all you do is worship and believe, the left might leave you alone. Try to live according to a belief that’s at odds with their vision of a secular utopia and they’ll persecute you, the First Amendment be damned.
administrative law/court. not real law/court. like the soviet union.
I would think some talented gays would start a business that would do it all. Cakes, catering, flowers, wedding venue, receptions. It’s quite an opportunity for them and the other gays, etc. should want to support a business that supported them. That is if they really wanted these things more than they want to make trouble.
Hate to say it, but this crap goes back to Civil Rights Legislation.
Had the Civil Rights Act only dealt with Government sponsored Discrimination, no problem. All Americans are equal under the Law.
As soon as it was directed towards Individuals and Private Businesses, it was a clear Violation of the Constitution. The SCOTUS affirmed that Freedom of Assembly and Freedom of Association are not mutually exclusive.
You are Free to Associate with those you choose to and you are Free to not Associate with those you choose not to.
It appears that our God Given Inalienable Right to the Free Exercise of Religion was also Sacrificed in the name of the same so called Civil Rights Legislation.
Romans, on this issue—the important part is the last sentence, which says God views those who approve such behavior to be as bad as, if not worse, than those who do it:
“So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies. They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen. That is why God abandoned them to their shameful desires. Even the women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulged in sex with each other. And the men, instead of having normal sexual relations with women, burned with lust for each other. Men did shameful things with other men, and as a result of this sin, they suffered within themselves the penalty they deserved. . . .
They know God’s justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyway. Worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too.”
Romans 1:24-27, 32 (New Living Translation)
Doesn't need interpreting, it means exactly what Jesus said and He didn't equivocate.
Matt 5-32,"But I say unto you that whosoever shall put away his wife except for the cause of fornication causes her to commit adultery, and whoso ever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery."
Mark 10:11 And he said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, 12 and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”
Luke 16:18 “Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery".
How much clearer could Jesus be, adultery is the only biblical justification for divorce, period, end of story.
And thats exactly why we have the Second Amendment.
why do they have the little boy dressed in a girl’s shirt???
Its definitely ‘in your face’ and Hitler would be proud. At least he passed laws against the Jews before he started slaughtering them.
This new breed of Rainbow Nazi mentality has just takin over.
Mr. Wellhoefer, thanks for keeping it up...
Why are lesbos so ugly?
That one ‘child’ looks like a boy in a dress. (S)he has a face a boy would make when he is mad.
What came first?
They were ugly or they were lesbos?
In every case the owners should be able to refuse being compelled by law to provide a specific but non-essential service for a specific reason due to conflict with what they believe.
The Jewish baker or sign maker should be able to refuse to create a special work for a KKK celebration, but not refuse any general service to them or a member. And in the case of the Kleins they did offer to sell other items.
A veteran should be able to refuse to sell a flag for a flag burning, if it is known that is the purpose, but one cannot refuse to sell an item because it may be used wrongly.
An inn keeper or function hall owner should be able to refuse to rent to those who manifestly intend to use it specifically for an immoral activity, but not if they also need a place to stay and there are no other options.
Nor can service be refused because of race or other amoral aspects, and the case at issue was that of use for a specific function.
Problem is, the Apostle Paul said (1 Corinthians 7:15) that if the unbelieving spouse wants a divorce, the Christian mate is not bound to them.
Paul couldn’t have been talking about just divorce, because the unbeliever could get a divorce and regardless of what the believer wanted, the believer could not stop them and make the unbeliever bound to them and the marriage.
Paul was talking about remarriage.
So there are at least two grounds for getting remarried, but yet not all Christians agree on this translation.
So do we need a Christian baker refusing them if they disagree with them on 1 Cor. 7:15?
Should the few Christians who still go around saying “The Jews killed Jesus” be able to refuse a cake or any other service to Jewish people, be they even Reform Jews who have no problem going into non-Jewish stores for any kind of service?
Here we go again, yet more Ad Homs attacking my moniker.
Yawn.
Adam Smith, the founder of free-market principles in his first work, The Wealth of Nations” said in his companion to this work in the “Theory of Moral Sentiments” that capitalism cannot be divorced from morality, so I will involve morality in everything when it involves capitalism.
Is it immoral to engage in religious sectarianism against fellow Chriatins over the interprtetation of Matthew 5:32 or 1 Corinthians 7:15 on marriage issues involving interpretations of scripture?
Or do we need to even go back one inch towards what we had in Europe before the 18th century?
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