Oregon imposes gag order on Christian bakers in gay wedding case

I don't know if you've followed the case of Sweet Cakes by Melissa. This is the now-closed bakery in Oregon that has become a target of state officials because its Christian owners declined to bake a cake for a lesbian wedding. Not only has the business been forced to close, the state has fined the Kleins $135,000. But it gets worse. Much worse. Now that state has responded to a radio interview the Kleins gave by ordering them to no longer talk publicly about why their faith compels them to decline such business. We've been telling you for some time now that this gay wedding business is little more than a cover for Fascism. Some of you thought that was way overblown. Can you still doubt it after this?

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In the ruling, Avakian placed an effective gag order on the Kleins, ordering them to “cease and desist” from speaking publicly about not wanting to bake cakes for same-sex weddings based on their Christian beliefs. “This effectively strips us of all our First Amendment rights,” the Kleins, owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa, which has since closed, wrote on their Facebook page. “According to the state of Oregon we neither have freedom of religion or freedom of speech." The cease and desist came about after Aaron and Melissa Klein participated in an interview with Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins. During the interview, Aaron said among other things, “This fight is not over. We will continue to stand strong.” Lawyers for plaintiffs, Rachel and Laurel Bowman-Cryer, argued that in making this statement, the Kleins violated an Oregon law banning people from acting on behalf of a place of public accommodation (in this case, the place would be the Kleins’ former bakery) to communicate anything to the effect that the place of public accommodation would discriminate.

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The specific order reads: “The Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor and Industries hereby orders [Aaron and Melissa Klein] to cease and desist from publishing, circulating, issuing or displaying, or causing to be published … any communication to the effect that any of the accommodations … will be refused, withheld from or denied to, or that any discrimination be made against, any person on account of their sexual orientation.” The secular left is really going full bore with its abuse of public accommodation laws, looking to set a standard that takes away any discretion on the part of a business owner concerning who he and/or she will do business with. There's one idiot who constantly comments on my Detroit News columns by repeating the same trope over and over again: "If you own a business, then serve the public, period." And yes, the oversimplification of the matter is intentional. It's an attempt to establish that there is no freedom of association permitted for anyone who owns a business. We've embedded this video before, but it's worth watching again - not only to demonstrate the heartbreak of the Kleins and their situation, but also understand that this is nothing more than an attempt by these two lesbians and the state's administrative structure to destroy these people. Plain and simple. This is vindictive and intentional. There is no reason to destroy this family because a couple of lesbian were told they would have to find someone else to bake them a cake. Yet that is exactly what's being done, because that's the whole point: The comments of some of the people on the street are pretty stunning too. Most clearly have no understanding of the fact that there is more of a principle involved here than just baking a cake, and some who perhaps do obviously don't care. They just figure that if it doesn't seem fair to them, it must be OK for the government to come down on the business owner. And now the State of Oregon wants to make it criminal for them to even explain why they made the decision they did - ripping to shreds both the First Amendment's freedom of speech and free exercise of religion guarantees. Remember the left's argument about how legalizing gay marriage would not affect you, and has nothing to do with you? That may be the biggest lie in this whole sorry affair.

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