Aaron and Melissa Klein, co-owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa, refused to sell a wedding cake to Rachel Cryer and Laurel Bowman (now Bowman-Cryer) because they were a same-sex couple in January 2013. The Kleins became martyrs for conservative opponents of LGBT equality, claiming that they were being persecuted for their beliefs — both because of the complaint the couple filed with the state and the public backlash they faced. The backlash led them to close their storefront and operate their bakery out of their home.
The Kleins have insisted on social media that they do not hate gay people, putting this Rick Warren quote on Facebook:
“Our culture has accepted 2 huge lies. The first is that if you disagree with someone’s lifestyle, you must fear or hate them. Second is that to love someone means that you must agree with everything they believe or do. Both are nonsense. You don’t have to compromise convictions to be compassionate.”
They insist that they were simply living in accordance with their religious beliefs when they rejected a lesbian couple’s request for a wedding cake. Furthermore, they said they believed their decision to deny service to the two women was protected by their right to practice their religion as they see fit.
I get tired of these arguments, and all you have to do is replace “gay” with “inter-racial” and the whole thing crumbles. Just as the owner of a lunch counter cannot discriminate on the basis of race, a business owner should not be able to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. And religion should not provide a safe shelter for bigotry.
The Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI) announced yesterday that the owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa violated a state nondiscrimination ordinance when they refused to sell a wedding cake to the lesbian couple. They may have to pay the couple as much as $150,000, though damages will be determined at a future hearing.
The legalese in this decision is important. The main argument the Kleins put forth was that compliance with the state nondiscrimination law constituted “compelled speech.” BOLI rejected that argument saying, “[The Kleins] were not asked to issue a marriage license, perform a wedding ceremony, or in any way legally recognize Complainants’ planned same-sex wedding.” The Kleins were “under no compulsion to publicly ‘speak the government’s message’ in an affirmative manner that demonstrates their support for same-sex marriage.” The event would be private, not public, and regardless of whether making a wedding cake may be expressive, “the operation of Respondents’ bakery, including Respondents’ decision not to offer services to a protected class of persons, is not.”
In other words, even if baking a cake IS “speech”, you still cannot discriminate.
The Kleins next legal argument was also grounded in the First Amendment: they claimed that being forced to produce a wedding cake was a violation of their religious beliefs. In analyzing law that might support such a claim, BOLI arrived at an important distinction based on the Kleins’ own testimony: “Their refusal to make a wedding cake… was not a religious practice, but conduct motivated by their religious beliefs.” This is important because, unlike the conduct link for sexual orientation, other jurisprudence has established that religious freedom does not relieve individuals of complying with a a law that is “neutral” in applicability irrespective of religion, like nondiscrimination protections.
In other words, if making cakes was an actual religious practice, then they might have a religious exemption.
Here’s the decision:
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