Court Removes $135K Fine For Christian Bakery That Rejected Lesbian Wedding Cake
Court Removes $135K Fine For Christian Bakery That Rejected Lesbian Wedding Cake
Christian Bakery Rejects Lesbian Wedding Cake
On Wednesday, an Oregon appeals court ordered a state agency to reconsider its decision to fine a Christian couple $135,000 for refusing to create a cake for a same-sex wedding, citing the state’s actions as “not reflecting… neutrality toward religion.”
The panel, however, maintained an earlier decision that their bakery had broken a state law forbidding discrimination based on sexual orientation.
Aaron and Melissa Klein, owners of Sweetcakes by Melissa in Gresham, have been fighting an Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries order for refusing to produce a wedding cake for a lesbian couple for years.
A three-judge panel of the Oregon Court of Appeals ruled on Wednesday that the Kleins had unlawfully discriminated by refusing to make a cake for Rachel and Laurel Bowman-wedding Cryer’s in 2013.
Court Removes $135K Fine For Christian Bakery That Rejected Lesbian Wedding Cake
The panel, however, overturned the judgment that the pair pay $135,000 in damages.
“We adhere to our prior decision affirming BOLI’s determinations that Aaron unlawfully discriminated against the Bowman-Cryers based on sexual orientation,” wrote Circuit Judge Erin Lagesen in the panel opinion.
“With respect to our prior affirmance of BOLI’s noneconomic damages award, we reach a different decision,” said Lagesen.
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“BOLI’s handling of the damages aspect of the case does not reflect the Free Exercise Clause’s need of neutrality toward religion.” As a result, we set aside the damages portion of the ruling and remand for additional remedy proceedings.”
“Oregon is trying to have its cake and eat it, too,” Stephanie Taub, senior counsel for the First Liberty Institute, a legal group that represents the Kleins, said in a statement.
“The Court acknowledges that the state institution that served as prosecutor and judge, in this case, was biased against the Kleins’ religious beliefs. Despite the anti-Christian bias that pervaded the entire case, the court is remanding the case to the same agency for a retrial,” Taub explained.
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Court Removes $135K Fine For Christian Bakery That Rejected Lesbian Wedding Cake
“Today’s decision should have brought this ten-year ordeal to a close. The state of Oregon’s animosity toward Aaron and Melissa must come to a stop.”
Aaron Klein cited his religious views and a verse from Leviticus in his refusal to prepare the wedding cake.
BOLI determined that the Kleins had violated Oregon’s accommodations statute prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation after the Bowman-Cryers filed a complaint.
The Kleins were fined $135,000 in penalties and the bakery was closed as a result of the BOLI verdict against them.
In 2016, the Kleins filed an appeal with the Oregon Court of Appeals against the BOLI order. They appealed to the United States Supreme Court in 2018 after an Oregon court affirmed the decision.
The Supreme Court vacated the ruling against the Kleins in June 2019 and sent the matter to the state court of appeals. The Supreme Court of the United States noted its decision in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission from 2018.
Court Removes $135K Fine For Christian Bakery That Rejected Lesbian Wedding Cake
The Supreme Court held 7-2 in Masterpiece that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission’s punishment of Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips for declining to produce a cake for a homosexual wedding was unconstitutional anti-religious animus.
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“To characterize a man’s faith as ‘one of the most despicable pieces of rhetoric that people can use’ is to disparage his religion in at least two distinct ways: by describing it as despicable, and also by characterizing it as merely rhetorical — something insubstantial and even insincere,” wrote the majority.
“This feeling is improper for a Commission charged with the solemn duty of enforcing Colorado’s anti-discrimination legislation in a fair and neutral manner — a law that protects discrimination on the basis of religion as well as sexual orientation.”
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