Should Christians be “outraged” and alarmed by this harsh and dictatorial imposition of a $135,000 fine and denial of freedom of speech to these bakers by leftwing-McCarthyesque Oregon Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian? There would be something unfeeling about orthodox Christians who were not. The Kleins were perfectly willing to bake a cake for the lesbian “couple” but just didn’t want to use their artistic skills to letter it with a message that they find morally offensive to their faith and natural-law sensibilities. They have been fined $135,000 (!) by an oppressive state official. Who among faithful Christians is not rightly “outraged” and alarmed by that?
According to a recent Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission statement, “Here We Stand: An Evangelical Declaration on Marriage”: “Outrage and panic are not the responses of those confident in the promises of a reigning Christ Jesus.” Well, if the Kleins are not outraged and alarmed (a better word than “panic”), being deprived of their livelihood, with five children to feed, $135,000 fine to pay in addition to legal costs for their defense, and First Amendment rights taken away, then I will be outraged and alarmed for them. (But, of course, it is plain to see the distress that they are under.) What does it take for Christians to be outraged and alarmed at injustice? To have such a thing happen to them? I’m outraged by being told that it is unchristian to express outrage at such a horrible injustice.
Oregon Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian finalized a preliminary ruling today ordering Aaron and Melissa Klein, the bakers who refused to make a cake for a same-sex wedding, to pay $135,000 in emotional damages to the couple they denied service…. In the ruling, Avakian placed an effective gag order on the Kleins, ordering them to “cease and desist” from speaking publicly about not wanting to bake cakes for same-sex weddings based on their Christian beliefs. “This effectively strips us of all our First Amendment rights,” the Kleins, owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa, which has since closed, wrote on their Facebook page. “According to the state of Oregon we neither have freedom of religion or freedom of speech.”
...Administrative Law Judge Alan McCullough, who is employed by the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries and was appointed by Avakian, threw out the argument in the “proposed order” he issued back in April. But today, Avakian, who was in charge of making the final ruling in the case—and is also an elected politician—reversed that decision.
The lesbian “couple” “submitted a long list of alleged physical, emotional and mental damages they claim to have experienced as a result of the Kleins’ unlawful conduct. Examples of symptoms included ‘acute loss of confidence,’ ‘doubt,’ ‘excessive sleep,’ ‘felt mentally raped, dirty and shameful,’ ‘high blood pressure,’ ‘impaired digestion,’ ‘loss of appetite,’ ‘migraine headaches,’ ‘pale and sick at home after work,’ ‘resumption of smoking habit’ ‘shock,’ ‘stunned,’ ‘surprise,’ ‘uncertainty,’ ‘weight gain’ and ‘worry.’”
If they feel these things after being offered a cake without “gay wedding” lettering, even though they could have had a lettered cake from a dozen or more other bakeries in the area, imagine how the Kleins feel after being fined $135,000 and stripped of their First Amendment rights?
Because they didn’t get a lettered cake, the lesbian women “felt mentally raped”! Not only that but they felt doubt, shock, surprise, uncertainty, and worry. Don’t most people feel such things on a regular basis, even after watching a powerful movie? They were even driven to resume smoking (as though that were the Kleins’ fault). The cumulative description of distress over a lettered cake that could be obtained at a dozen or more other bakeries, at a time when Oregon didn’t even allow “gay marriage,” is so patently ridiculous as to make a mockery of the judicial system.
Reprinted with permission from Dr. Robert A. J. Gagnon.
You can learn more about the Aaron and Melissa Klein story here.
