Tag Archives: Oregon

News

Christian couple loses appeal, must pay $135,000 for not affirming same-sex marriage

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States with non-discrimination laws
States that force Christians to affirm and celebrate LGBT lifestyles

There’s been an update on the persecution of the Christian bakers from Oregon. They appealed their case to the Oregon Court of Appeals.

The Daily Signal has the latest news:

A husband-and-wife baking team must pay a $135,000 fine for declining to make a cake for the wedding of two women, Oregon’s second-highest court has ruled.

A three-judge panel of the Oregon Court of Appeals on Thursday upheld a decision by a state agency that led to the fine and forced Aaron and Melissa Klein to close their bakery.

The court ruled that baking wedding cakes is not “speech, art, or other expression” protected by the First Amendment. The judges said the state did not “impermissibly burden the Kleins’ right to the free exercise of religion” because it compelled the Christian bakers only to comply with “a neutral law of general applicability.”

Oregon law prohibits businesses from refusing service because of a customer’s sexual orientation, as well as because of race, gender, and other personal characteristics.

“We are very disappointed in the court’s decision,” Michael Berry, deputy general counsel at First Liberty Institute, which represents the Kleins, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview Friday. “I think that punishing people for their religious beliefs is … not American, and it’s wrong.”

“It does not matter how you were born or who you love,” one of the lesbians, Laurel Bowman-Cryer, said in a written  statement  following the ruling.

[…]After the Kleins declined in 2013 to make a cake for the wedding of Rachel and Laurel Bowman-Cryer, citing their Christian religious beliefs that marriage is the union of a man and a woman, they also faced protests that eventually led them to shut down their bakery.

[…]Berry, the First Liberty attorney, said his legal team is deciding how they will move forward, which could mean appealing to the Oregon Supreme Court.

How would same-sex marriage affect your marriage? That’s what proponents of same-sex marriage asked before forcing us all to participate in their gay weddings. The Christian bakers in question did not discriminate against individual gay people, they just didn’t want to be participants in a view of marriage that is unacceptable to any Bible-believing Christian. Marriage is important in Christianity. It’s a union of complementary male and female natures designed to provide children with male and female parenting.

If you’re living in one of the blue or purple states in the map above, then you are vulnerable to persecution by your state. It’s very important for Christians to be aware of where they live, and to whom they are paying taxes. I think husbands in particular need to be careful about what they study, where they work, and where they live, given the challenges that Christian families face from the secular state. Secular leftists are in love with their sinful rebellion, and morality makes no sense to them. We have seen many, many examples of people on the secular left using threats, coercion, vandalism and even violence, to get others to agree with them.

It’s worth remembering that we’re in this situation largely because pious Bible-oriented pastors have been taking a vacation from the moral issues of the day, e.g. – abortion and same-sex marriage. They see their role as feeling good and being liked. Using science and philosophy to train Christians about the case for pro-life and or the case for natural marriage is too much work. I guess they think that it’s better to just focus on proper theology for the 50th time in a row, and not say anything divisive about current events.

News

Couple fined $135,000 for declining to participate in gay marriage

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States with non-discrimination laws
States with non-discrimination laws

How much does it cost to be an authentic Christian? You might think that in America, the land of religious freedom, that being a Christian would be free.

And you’d be wrong.

Here’s the story from Oregon Live.

Excerpt:

Oregon Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian on Thursday ordered the owners of a former Gresham bakery to pay $135,000 in damages to a lesbian couple for refusing to make them a wedding cake.

Avakian’s ruling upheld a preliminary finding earlier this year that the owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa had discriminated against the women on the basis of their sexual orientation.

Bakery owners Melissa and Aaron Klein cited their Christian beliefs against same-sex marriage in denying service.

[…]Avakian’s final order makes clear that serving potential customers equally trumps the Kleins’ religious beliefs.

[…]The commissioner ordered the Kleins to pay $75,000 to Rachel Bowman-Cryer and $60,000 to Laurel Bowman-Cryer. His ruling may be appealed to the Oregon Court of Appeals.

In addition to the fine, there were other consequences for the Kleins:

The Sweet Cakes by Melissa car was vandalized and broken into twice. Photographers and florists severed ties with the company, eventually forcing Sweet Cakes to close the Gresham shop in September 2013. The business now operates out of the couple’s home in Sandy.

If that were not enough, Avakian also ordered the Kleins to not speak about the case in public:

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.”

Compare that with a similar case from Canada, where a Canadian pastor who disagreed with homosexuality was also issued with a gag order.

This is why I always put such a high emphasis on using aliases and making education and career decisions that allow you to accumulate money for your legal defense. There was a time in this country when being a Christian was free. It is no longer that time. And most Americans are not going to lift a finger to protect us. We are on our own. You need to be careful with your money, to prepare for the day when you are fined $135,000 for the crime of acting as if Christianity is true.

Consider this verse, which is one of my life verses:

Luke 14:28:

28 For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it?

I do not say this proudly. I am not as strong in my career or savings as I would like to be. But I am constantly meeting young men and especially young women who think that the Bible is giving them license to do whatever their heart is telling them, irrespective of stewardship. But we cannot afford to ignore stewardship of money any more. We are beyond doing what is easy and fun now. We are beyond doing what makes us happy now. Don’t expect that God will rescue you from a lack of prudence.

Previously, I posted something about what the Bible says about earning, saving and giving away money – featuring pastor Wayne Grudem. Do take a look at it with fresh eyes, now that this Oregon sentence is out.

News

Portland bar owner fined $400,000 for offending transexuals

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Wow. Fresh on the heels of the Portland bakery closing comes this new story about a Portland bar closing.

Excerpt:

A North Portland bar owner is facing a $400,000 fine for discriminating against a transgender woman’s group.

The Bureau of Labor and Industries handed down the fine yesterday to Chris Penner, the owner of the bar formerly known as the “P Club.”

Last summer, one woman said they received a voicemail from Penner, who said they were not allowed to return because he didn’t want people to think he ran a “tranny bar.” In the voicemail, Penner claimed the group was hurting business.

“People think that A.) we’re a tranny bar, or B.) that we’re a gay bar. We are neither. People are not coming in because they just don’t want to be here on a Friday night now,” he said.

Under Oregon law, Oregonians may not be denied full and equal service based on sexual orientation. The law provides an exemption for religious organizations and schools, but does not allow private business owners to discriminate based on sexual orientation, just as they cannot legally deny service based on race, sex, age, disability or religion.

The fine is the first imposed under the 2007 Oregon Equality Act.

Since 2007, Oregonians have filed 11 complaints of unlawful discrimination in public places.

In addition to the massive fine, Penner also has to pay a $5,000 civil penalty.

The argument by radical gay activists is that free speech is less important their feelings of being offended. They don’t want to be offended by your disagreement/disapproval. And if they are offended then they have to threaten you and attack you and hurt you and hurt your business and hurt your career until you stop offending them. And everyone on the left thinks that this is fine.

I would expect moderate gays to be speaking out to defend the right of individuals to disagree and disapprove of behaviors that they don’t agree with, but I’m not seeing a lot of that.

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