An Open Letter to Melissa and Aaron Klein

Dear Melissa and Aaron, 

Sit down. And shut up. The more you talk and kvetch and moan and play the Poor Me card the more you sound like hateful homophobes and bigots and small-minded, narrow-minded, close-minded, no minded fools.

That said, let me backtrack in case anyone has forgotten who you are: you’re the Oregon baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for Rachel Cryer and Laurel Bowman’s same-sex wedding because God. You know, because God handed down that Eleventh Commandment Thou Shalt Not Bake Cakes For Queer Weddings. Or something.

And then the couple you inflicted your bigotry upon sued, and you whined some more about God and Jesus and how, in your Bible, hate and homophobia are accepted, until the state of Oregon said what I said at the beginning of this letter: sit down and shut up … and bake that cake.

But you still refused so you decided to cut off your nose to spite your face and close the doors to your shop, and create your Bigot Baked Goods in your own home so you can still spread the hate; and keep talking and kvetching and whining and moaning.

I mean, how else do we explain your appearance — a freaking’ cake decorator — at the Values Voter Summit [VVS], AKA Hate The Gays Summit? And for those who don’t know, the VVS is listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group because, well, it is a hate group.

And poor Melissa, so distraught over being asked to perform a service for which her business was created, to bake a cake, began weeping as she talked about how her rights were violated and how much she misses talking to straight couples about their weddings:

“For me personally when I would sit down with them I just would want to know everything about her wedding. I'd want to know about the flowers, her dress, the centerpieces, her colors, the way her hair is going to be. I would even want to talk about 'where are you going on your honeymoon?'"

And you can’t do that with a gay couple? And, well, even if you could, what business is it of yours to stick your nose into other’s business? You are asked to bake a cake, not interview me and ask me about my wedding; you are to bake a cake, for which you will be paid, and with that money you can live your life and keep hating. But instead, you decide to deny a gay couple’s request for pastries and shutter your business and then take to the road on a Pity Party Tour.

You’re an idiot, Melissa, if you don’t see that refusing to bake a cake, i.e. do your job, for a same-sex couple is not at all different from running the Woolworth lunch counter in the South back in the middle of last century and telling Blacks that they can’t eat there because, well, again, God didn’t want Blacks and Whites sittin’ next to each at lunch.

You don’t see that; all you see is a same-sex couple and that’s just disgusting. But I’m done with you, Melissa, because you don’t get it, you won’t get it, and one day, in the very near future, you will be an asterisk in the march toward marriage equality; an asterisk leading to the story about the idiot baker who shut her doors rather than bake a cake for gay couple. One day, in the very near future, and long after that, people will giggle at how ridiculous you were, and probably still are.

And now, for you, Aaron, and what you said at the VVS:

“To be told they’re going to force me to convey a message other than what I want to convey — it flies in the face of the Constitution. It’s a violation of my conscience. It’s a violation of my religious freedom. It’s horrible to see your own government doing this to you….We had to shut the shop down. Melissa does very limited cakes out of our house. I mean we're facing in excess of $150,000 of damages for this, just for simply standing by my first amendment rights."

First off: you were not being told to convey a message; you were asked to bake a cake. And you were not asked to condone the wedding, go to the wedding, sing at the wedding, dance at the wedding, drink at the wedding, or even eat the freaking cake at the wedding. You were asked to do a job for which you opened a public business.

And if it’s cost you $150,000 that’s just a small price to pay for being allowed to be a bigot and run around the country and complain to a group of like-minded bigots and homophobes.

And them after your appearance at HateFest, you took to Facebook to continue talking about Poor You, and you decided to use anti-gay activist Rick Warren’s “Two Huge Lies” lie in your post:

“Our culture has accepted 2 huge lies. The first is that if you disagree with someone’s lifestyle, you must fear or hate them. Second is that to love someone means that you must agree with everything they believe or do. Both are nonsense. You don’t have to compromise convictions to be compassionate.”

First off, it isn’t a lifestyle, and if you think it is a lifestyle, first go get a dictionary and look up the word, and then explain to me what the ‘heterosexual’ lifestyle is. What this is, what being gay is, is a sexual orientation, just like being straight, only we are attracted to members of our own gender. It’s not a lifestyle, it’s a life, so, when you’re done whining, stop spreading that lie.

Secondly, no one, no one, least of all Rachel and Laurel are asking that you agree with them, or love them; we’re just asking you to bake a cake, get paid for it, and then shut up.

Seriously. Shut up. People are already finding you two ludicrous and it’ll only get worse from here on out. Imagine your grandchildren opening a history book — or, by then it’ll probably be a history app — and finding your names listed as being anti-gay, anti-equality. Imagine your grandchildren laughing about that.

Gosh, what were they thinking? It was just a cake?

Just a cake.

Sincerely,

Bob and Carlos

Gay and getting married. get used to it.