Sweet Cakes by Melissa, Religious Freedom, Lose on Appeal
by: John Stonestreet & Roberto Rivera, Breakpoint:
The state of Oregon told a pair of bakers to make the cake or eat a ruinous fine. And sadly, a federal court agreed.
Now stop me if you’ve heard this before: A same-sex couple asks a local bakery to make a wedding cake. The bakers, who are Christians, decline to do so on the grounds that it would violate their religious convictions.
The couple, feeling deeply aggrieved, files a complaint. The state civil rights agency finds for the same-sex couple and, in effect, forces the bakers to choose between their faith and their livelihood.
If you noticed my use of plural nouns so far, you may have guessed that I’m not talking about Jack Phillips, whose case was recently argued before the Supreme Court. No, this time I’m talking about Sweet Cakes by Melissa, and its owners, Aaron and Melissa Klein.
Not only did the Oregon Labor Commissioner rule against the Kleins, he imposed a ruinous fine on them of $135,000. A fine that high is the Commissioner telling the Kleins, not only are you wrong, you’re evil. You need to be put out of business.
The Kleins appealed the ruling to the Oregon Court of Appeals, and last month the Court upheld the Oregon Labor Commissioner. While the outcome wasn’t surprising—Oregon is a very liberal state after all—there are some aspects of the opinion that are worth noting.
First is what wasn’t said by the court. There were no comparisons to Nazis or racists, nor were there were references to Jim Crow. That separates this ruling from that of a federal judge in Telescope Media Group v. Lindsey.
That case involved two Christian videographers, Carl and Angel Larsen, who challenged parts of Minnesota’s “Human Rights Act” that would require them to service same-sex weddings. They sought the right to post a notice on their website about their policy concerning same-sex weddings.
The Federal District Court rejected their arguments and then said that what the Larsens were proposing to do was “conduct akin to a ‘White Applicants Only’ sign.”
Now thankfully, the Oregon Court of Appeals didn’t make any such crazy comparisons. Unlike the federal court in Minnesota, it took the Kleins’ claims to freedom of artistic expression seriously.
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