Aaron and Melissa Klein, owners of Oregon bakery Sweet Cakes By Melissa, have been ordered to pay $135,000 to Laurel and Rachel Bowman-Cryer, but not for refusing to sell them a wedding cake. The $135,000 is compensatory damages for harassment and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The Kleins, who tried to generate publicity and attract media attention, posted Laurel’s and Rachel’s home address on Facebook; as a result, the lesbian couple received death threats, and the state warned them their foster children (whom they’ve since adopted) weren’t safe and might have to be taken away from them. The Kleins aren’t victims of religious persecution as they’ve made themselves out to be. They’re tortfeasors. This isn’t a fine imposed over a religious squabble. It’s personal injury damages. Click here for story.
I don’t fault the bakers for seeking media publicity. Not at all. I don’t fault them for publicly criticizing the lesbian couple for the specific act of filing the complaint, as long as they didn’t make it personal. They were within their rights to do that. Easily.
If they actively encouraged people to make threats against the lesbian couple, or said things about them that they knew were untrue then they were not within their rights and should be punished for that.
But you know who else should be punished while we’re at it? All the lefty media organizations and individuals who boycotted, threatened, or otherwise harassed that Walkerton, Indiana pizza lady who agreed to talk to a reporter and said she wouldn’t cater a gay wedding. People were hating on her like she was Satan, and she lost her business over that.
No double standards. You stir up hate against private people and they suffer because of it, then you’re on the hook to make ’em whole.
I agree wiht you. I would go further. I do not think the public accomadations act ought to go this far. Would it also force a Black cook to cater a cross burning?