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Published On: Tue, Feb 5th, 2013

Oregon’s attorney general targets baker because he refused to make a wedding cake for a lesbian couple

The Oregon attorney general’s office is investigating a Portland-area bakery after a lesbian couple filed a complaint alleging that the owner discriminated against them when he declined to make a wedding cake for their same-sex wedding.

"Lesbian" wedding mock-cake at the Roma Gay Pride in 2008. Picture by Stefano Bolognini via wikimedia commons.

“Lesbian” wedding mock-cake at the Roma Gay Pride in 2008. Picture by Stefano Bolognini via wikimedia commons.

Aaron Klein, who owns and operates Sweet Cakes by Melissa bakery along with his wife, said he received notice of the complaint last week from the Oregon Department of Justice. The complaint is a result of an incident on January 17 when a woman and her mother came to his shop to taste test wedding cakes.

“I did my normal thing, where I asked what the bride-and-grooms’ first names were to write down on our wedding cake contract,” Klein told CNSNews.com. “She, the girl, giggled a little bit and then informed me it was two brides. At which point, I looked up from my paper, and said, ‘I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t waste your time, but we don’t do same-sex marriages. We don’t believe it is right.”

Klein said the woman and her mother “looked at each other with a little bit of a disgusted look” and got up to leave.

“Ten minutes later the mother came back in and told me I got to say my piece and I have a right to my opinion, but she wanted to give me hers, or say her opinion, and I said, ‘OK, go ahead.’ She proceeded to tell me that she used to think like I did, then her daughter told her she was gay, and she realized that God had made her daughter that way. And disagreed with her. I told her the Bible doesn’t say that.”

“She told me that I needed to read my Bible, and I quoted Leviticus 20:13, at which point she told me I was wrong, and stormed out.”

Laurel Bowman is the name on the complaint filed with the Oregon Attorney General.  (See Complaint)

“I’ll sell [gay people] stuff … I’ll talk to them, it’s fine,” he told NBC.

This statement has drawn more criticism than his stance against the weding cake.

See, he will sell them stuff. And even talk to them. No bias there. Just, you know, #nohomo. – Salon noted.

 

 

 

 

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Have Your Say
  1. Oregon files ballot initiative to protect businesses declining services to same-sex weddings - The Global Dispatch says:

    […] photographers have raised the issued to new awareness. The attacks on Sweet Cakes by Melissa made national headlines, especially when the attorney general sided with the gay […]

  2. Oregon bakery can’t survive backlash from refusing to make a wedding cake for a gay couple - The Global Dispatch says:

    […] first names were to write down on our wedding cake contract,” Klein told CNSNews.com in that report. “She, the girl, giggled a little bit and then informed me it was two brides. At which point, I […]

  3. Russ says:

    ‎”Klein says, “they’re making a choice to do what their doing, I’m making a choice to not be a part of it,” trying to make a libertarianistic case for his choice to refuse service, but it requires little imagination to extend that logic uncomfortably far. So far that discrimination is the basis rather than a pitfall of the market, where the provider is as or more important as the product, and so on.”

    http://22oftheday.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-right-to-refuse-service-and.html

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