Same-Sex Couple In Sweet Cakes By Melissa Case Received Death Threats

The same-sex couple, parents to two foster children, received death threats after filing discrimination charges against an Oregon baker.

A simple anti-discrimination case filed against an Oregon baker a few years ago has become a rallying cry for the religious right. It’s even been cited by anti-gay lawmakers as a reason to enact so-called “religious freedom” laws to “protect” Christians from being forced to follow the law and treat all customers equally.

Rachel and Laurel Bowman-Cryer are a same-sex couple who wanted a wedding cake in January of 2013. Rachel and her mother visited Sweet Cakes By Melissa, a local Gresham, Oregon bakery. When Aaron Klein, Melissa’s husband, asked her the name of the groom, Rachel “giggled a little bit,” he says, and told him she was marrying a woman. 

Aaron Klein says he “didn’t want to make anybody upset.” In court today, he told a state administrative law judge for the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries that he said to her,  “I’m very sorry, I believe I have wasted your time. We do not do cakes for same sex weddings.”

The Kleins have maintained they are Christians and that baking wedding cakes for same-sex couples would violate their deeply held religious beliefs.

Later, Rachel’s mother returned alone to the bake shop to tell Aaron how she felt.

OregonLive reports:

“She stated that you have your opinion and you have a right to it, but I’d like to say my piece,” Klein testified. “She told me God had made her children gay and that her truth had changed and that she accepted them.”

Klein said he did not mean to belittle anyone when he spoke next.

“Why would the Bible say, and I quoted Leviticus,” Klein testified.

Shockingly, the Bowman-Cryers received death threats after the story gained media attention and their personal contact information was posted to Aaron Klein’s personal Facebook page, according to OregonLive.

Rachel Bowman-Cryer said she and her wife received death threats as media attention and criticism from strangers escalated in the months after the story went national in January 2013.

She said the threats were part of a stream of “hateful, hurtful things” that came after the couple’s contact information (home address, phone and email) was posted on Aaron Klein’s personal Facebook page. She said she feared for her life and her wife’s life.

It’s unclear if Aaron Klein or someone commenting on his Facebook page posted the contact information that was apparently used to threaten the Bowman-Cryers family.

Also shocking is that the Kleins’ attorneys blamed Rachel and Laurel Bowman-Cryer for the stress placed on their family after they reported the discrimination. At the time, the couple was only fostering their two young girls, and the state warned them they could lose their children because of the increased level of stress caused by the posting of their personal information.

“During cross-examination, lawyers for the Kleins suggested that the Bowman-Cryers themselves ignited the media coverage by filing complaints with the state,” OregonLive reports. “Their point in doing so was to argue that any pain and suffering sustained by the women was due to their own or others’ actions rather than their clients’.”

“Isn’t the real reason you felt stress after the media firestorm was that the state threatened to take away your kids,” attorney Tyler Smith asked.

Of course, those facts never make it into the fundraising letters sent by religious right anti-gay hate groups, who portray the Kleins as good Christians who wouldn’t hurt anyone, and who merely want to serve god.

Last month, the judge ruled against the Kleins.

A state administrative law judge will decide how much, if anything, the Kleins will have to pay the Bowman-Cryers. Prosecutors are asking for $75,000 for each woman, totaling $150,000. Same-sex marriage opponents have already claims for months that the amount has been set and paid, and the Kleins have been bankrupted and lost their business because of the discrimination lawsuit. Of course, not one iota of those charges are true.

 

Related stories:

Anti-Gay Christian Baker Says She Is ‘Compassionate’

Christian Baker Who Closed Her Shop Rather Than Serve Gay Couples Breaks Into Tears (Video)

 

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