Hate Bakers Lose Their Shop

I would shed a tear, but …

Sweet Cakes by Melissa, the Oregon bakery that refused to make a cake for a same-sex wedding in 2013, has announced that it is closing for good.

If you remember, co-owners Aaron and Melissa Klein would not bake a cake for Laurel and Rachel Bowman-Cryer “because [same-sex marriage] goes against their Christian faith.” Well, Rachel and Lauren sued because discrimination based on sexual orientation is illegal in Oregon and in 2015 the Kilns were ordered to pay the two women $135,000 in damages.

The money is being held by the state while the Klein’s appeal.

 Shortly after this story broke, the Klein’s closed their store and began running the business out of their home; the home business has been quiet for many months until the announcement came last week that Sweet Cakes was no more. And now, while the Klein’s and the rightwingnuts will blame this on The Gays and the ALLEGED “War on Religion,” I simply have one thing to say …

Y’all should’a baked the cake … okurrr?

Can I Get An Amen: Hate Bakers Pay Their Fine

Well, well, well …

Aaron and Melissa Klein, the owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa in Gresham, Oregon, who were sued nearly three years ago by Rachel and Laurel Bowman-Cryer, a same-sex couple, because they refused to bake a cake — keep in mind, their business is baking cakes — for the couple’s wedding, and were then sued by the couple and found guilty of discrimination by the state of Oregon and fined $137,000 have finally written that check.

The Kleins bitched and moaned and kvetched and cried baby Jeebus until someone created a GoFundMe page, or some kinda money-grabbing page, upon which they pocketed nearly half a million Hate Dollars.

And so now, after riding the wave of anti-LGBT hatred masking itself as religious freedom, because, apparently, for some of these morons, their ALLEGED faith trumps the laws of the land, they have paid their fines … but, the check will be held by the state until the Klein's appeal on the matter is resolved.

Here’s how it’s resolved: you own a business, you cater to the public … all of the public.

Or, pay $137,000 in damages. That’s a whole lotta Hate Cakes, right?

KATU

The Bigot Bakers Are 'Kim Davis-ing' A Court Order to Pay $135,000 Fine For Discrimination

I kinda suspected that once Kim Davis became a criminal, by refusing to follow the rule of law because, she says, the Bible made her do it, that it wouldn’t be long before other idiots followed suit.

And now, two of the biggest idiots — Aaron and Melissa Klein, the Oregon Bigot Bakers and owners of Sweetcakes by Melissa — are taking a page from the Kim Davis Playbook; the part of the book that says it doesn’t matter what the law says, do whatever the Baby Jeebus whispered in your ears.

A simple back story: the Klein’s are bakers, they bake cakes; they were asked to bake a cake for a same-sex couple’s wedding and they refused because the Baby Jeebus doesn’t like The Gays — at least that was their excuse. So, the Klein’s, rather than bake, and sell and make a profit from, a cake, closed up shop. But the same-sex couple sued for discrimination and last July the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries [BOLI] ordered the Klein’s to pay $135,000 to that same-sex couple, Rachel and Laurel Bowman-Cryer.

But Aaron and Melissa have, for the last three months, deified defied the court order and are refusing to pay. In that same time, their attorney has twice requested a stay while the Oregon Court of Appeals considers the Klein's case, saying that the payment of the $135, 000 would financially ruin the Klein’s.

BOLI Commissioner Brad Avakian rejected those requests mainly because Aaron and Melissa have raised a half-million dollars on a crowd-funding website so their claims of “financial ruin” are, quite simply, a lie, since they would actually not be out of pocket one dime to pay the judgment. There have been attempts by BOLI to work with the Klein’s, but the Klein’s, through their attorneys, have refused.

So, while they didn’t bake the cake, they’ve made some $500,000 for nothing, and are still refusing to follow the rule of law, and a court order.

Hypocrites, bigots, liars and thieves.

And the irony is that the people who probably donated to the Klein’s plight are most likely conservative Republicans who, for the most part, who are against the idea of handouts. And yet they’ve given money to the Klein’s to help with the case, to pay their legal fees and court costs, but the Klein’s are just living off that cash.

Sounds like a form of welfare to me. But I guess the Baby Jeebus that the Klein’s believe in doesn’t have a problem with that.

Willamette Week
Photo Source

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.