On January 28, an as yet, unidentified woman filed a discrimination complaint with the Oregon State Attorney General's Office against Sweet Cakes bakery owner, Aaron Klein after he refused to make a cake for a lesbian wedding.
Sweet Cakes by Melissa is located in Gresham, Oregon.
KGW reports:
It started on Jan. 17 when a mother and daughter showed up at Sweet Cakes by Melissa looking for the perfect wedding cake.
“My first question is what’s the wedding date,” said owner Aaron Klein. “My next question is bride and groom’s name … the girl giggled a little bit and said it’s two brides.”
Klein apologized to the women and told them he and his wife do not make cakes for same-sex marriages. Klein said the women were disgusted and walked out.
“I believe that marriage is a religious institution ordained by God,” said Klein. “A man should leave his mother and father and cling to his wife … that to me is the beginning of marriage.”
[...]
“I’d rather have my kids see their dad stand up for what he believes in then to see him bow down because one person complained.”
Klein is now being investigated for possibly violating the Oregon Equality Act of 2007, under which actually private businesses cannot refuse service to anyone based on "sexual orientation or gender identity."
Klein is a Christian and admits that he has refused to produce wedding cakes for gay couples in the past.
Unfortunately, for Klein, the statute does not provide any exceptions for religious beliefs.
Klein told KATU: "I apologized for wasting their time and said we don’t do same-sex marriages. honestly did not mean to hurt anybody, didn’t mean to make anybody upset, (it’s) just something I believe in very strongly."
Was Klein targeted because of his Christian beliefs, that marriage is between a man and a woman?
It is not the first time a bakery has come under fire for such a refusal...
In July 2012, as gay activists began a boycott of the popular Chick-fil-A chain of restaurants over the company's president and CEO, Dan T. Cathy's stated support of traditional marriage, the Masterpiece Cake Shop in Lakewood, Colorado, was also being boycotted.
The cake shop's owner, Jack Phillips refused to make a wedding cake for Dave Mullins and Charlie Craig, a gay couple.
After Phillips turned away their business, Mullins and Craig became angry and shared their experience on Facebook.
Mullins told Denver's Westword Blog: "It was the most awkward, surreal, very brief encounter. We got up to leave, and to be totally honest, I said, 'F@*k you and your homophobic cake shop.' And I may or may not have flipped him off."
What resulted was a huge response from those on both sides of the issue, as well as a boycott and a demonstration in front of the bakery.
Protester Cate Owen told CBS Denver: "I support local business, I think it’s really important to our community to support local business. If it has to do with discrimination I don’t think we should support it. I think we should want to change their policies. It’s not like we want to shut them down."
Despite the boycott and at least 1,000 angry phone calls Phillips received, he is adamant in his beliefs.
"We would close down that bakery before we closed our beliefs, so that may be what it comes to … we'll see," Phillips said.
While it seems that gay marriage activists are very vocal when it comes to the beliefs expressed by presidents of fast food chains and local bakery owners...they behave much differently with those who would and actually have killed homosexuals.
While on a U.S. tour In 2006, former Iranian President Mohammed Khatami was invited to speak at the ultra-liberal Harvard University.
Khatami actually defended Iran's practice of executing homosexuals.
Khatami told the gathered faculty and students: "Homosexuality is a crime in Islam and crimes are punishable. And the fact that a crime could be punished by execution is debatable."
Since 1979, Iran has executed more than 4,000 people for the "crime" of homosexuality.
In 2005, the Iranian government hanged Mahmoud Asgari, 16, and Ayaz Marhoni, 18, for homosexual acts. The two teenagers were imprisoned for 14 months and each given 228 lashes before a hangman’s noose was slipped around their necks.
Yet, Harvard's left-wing populace treated the murderous Khatami with great respect as he spoke at the university’s Kennedy School of Government.
There were no protesters, no chants and no opposition.
However, when then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Colin Powell delivered Harvard’s commencement address in 1993, he was treated to a barrage of raucous jeers from protesting homosexuals.
The school's gay student body turned out en masse to make Powell feel as uncomfortable as possible. They booed and chanted while he spoke, they proudly held offensive signs, and released pink balloons in the face of the Vietnam War hero. Powell became the target of the harassment because he opposed allowing homosexuals to serve openly in the military.
Isn’t it curious that a man who has spent all of his adult life serving the United States and doing so with great integrity, was treated so shabbily by the same group who in turn warmly welcomes a murderer?
Apparently, it is worse for someone to state their personal beliefs in support of traditional marriage than it is to actually murder individuals over their sexual preference.
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