The Fight Between Same-Sex Couples and Christian Conservative Business Owners Is Far From Over

In January 2013, Rachel Bowman-Cryer and her mother visited the Gresham, Oregon, bakery Sweet Cakes by Melissa to do a taste test for her wedding. According to court records, things turned tense after Sweet Cakes co-owner Aaron Klein asked for the names of the bride and groom. Bowman-Cryer told him there would be two brides. Klein responded that he and his wife, Melissa, wouldn’t bake a cake for a same-sex wedding. Bowman-Cryer and her mother walked out. While Bowman-Cryer wept in the car, her mother went back to try to change Klein’s mind. He held fast and quoted a line from Leviticus calling homosexuality an abomination. That night, Bowman-Cryer’s fiancée filed a complaint with the Oregon Department of Justice.

The state determined in 2015 that the Kleins had violated Oregon’s anti-discrimination laws and ordered them to pay $135,000 in damages to the Bowman-Cryers, who got a cake from another bakery for their wedding. The Kleins are appealing, arguing that they had a First Amendment right to refuse the couple a wedding cake. The couple, who closed the Sweet Cakes shop in 2013 and now sell their goods online, say they’re happy to sell cookies or cupcakes to gay customers. “Aaron and Melissa saw their bakery as their Christian ministry to the community,” says Ken Klukowski, senior counsel at the Texas-based First Liberty Institute, a legal advocacy group representing the Kleins. “To bake a cake celebrating a same-sex marriage would force them to engage in speech they disagree with.”