Bakery Owners Who Refused Lesbian Wedding Service Just Told What State Will Do To Them

For Melissa and Aaron Klein — owners of a small, family-run bakery in Sandy, Or. — Thursday was not a day for baking a cake in celebration of a victory for their First Amendment rights. In fact, it may have been the day that will be remembered for having forced the Kleins to power down the ovens and turn out the lights of their business, Sweet Cakes by Melissa.

As The Blaze reports, The Oregon Labor Commissioner — citing Oregon law that prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation — has issued a final order imposing a whopping fine on the Kleins.

“The owners of an Oregon bakery that refused to bake a wedding cake for a lesbian couple were ordered Thursday to pay $135,000 ‘in damages for emotional and mental suffering resulting from the denial of service.’”

After learning they would be fined $135,000 for declining the lesbian couple’s wedding cake order, the Kleins posted a message on the Facebook page for their business — a message that, as of this writing, has gotten well over 9,300 likes. The Kleins pledge they will not give up the fight, saying they are “here to obey God not man.” An image of the entire Facebook post appears below.

A GoFundMe page that had been set up for donations to help support the Kleins was shut down. However, through another online donation site called Continue to Give, people are now stepping up frequently and generously with pledges toward the fundraising goal of $150,000.

On the website for their bakery, the Kleins say they’re still in business, still baking cakes that are “custom made and designed to fit you.” As for their wedding services, the wording on the website for Sweet Cakes is explicit and leaves no doubt about their stance on traditional marriage.

“We here at Sweet Cakes strongly believe that when a man and woman come together to be joined as one, it is truly one of the most special days of their lives….”.

BCN editor’s note: This article first appeared at Western Journalism.