Persecuted U.S. bakers urge Brit counterparts to fight

Aaron and Melissa Klein face a $135,000 fine for refusing to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding.

The co-owner of an Oregon bakery that closed shop after he and his wife refused to bake a "wedding" cake for a same-sex couple is showing solidarity with a U.K. bakery facing a similar threat.

"My message to Ashers bakery is stand, fight this, it's time for Christians to unite," Aaron Klein of Sweet Cakes By Melissa in Gresham said in an interview with the BBC.

A judge has recommended a fine of $135,000 against Klein and his wife, Melissa, for violating the state's non-discrimination law. The couple are now selling cakes from their home.

Aaron Klein was reacting to a court ruling in the U.K. this week against Ashers Bakery Co. for violating nondiscrimination laws by declining to a homosexual activist's request to bake a cake with the slogan "Support Gay Marriage."

Ashers' owners are considering an appeal.

In the interview, Melissa Klein described the ruling as "ridiculous."

"They should have the right to be free not to express something they don't agree with," she said. "To me, being a baker, the cake is our canvas and we get to put our artwork on it.

"When you make a cake, you are putting your signature on it and they should have the right not to do it," she said.

Aaron Klein said the issue is the message not the person.

"We're not trying to do something that is overtly trying to hurt someone, we're not trying to tell someone you can't have a cookie in my shop, we're just saying we don't support an event," he said.

The Christian Institute, which has worked on the Ashers case, noted Aaron Klein said he believes the Bible is God's inerrant word and that it states marriage is between a man and a woman.

WND previously reported U.K. media expressed alarm at the ruling from the taxpayer-funded Equality Commission against Ashers.

Wrote the Belfast Telegraph: "The state demands that all bakers in the land must be in favor of same-sex marriage. Or at least they must be willing, if requested, to pipe out their support for it in pink icing on the top of a cake.

"Butchers and candlestick-makers, regardless of their religious opinions, will also be forced to comply, or face prosecution, or give up their businesses entirely," the commentary said. "By the same legislative logic, a Muslim printer could be compelled to produce Hebdo-style cartoon images of the prophet Muhammad. The lesbian owner of a clothing company could be forced to make T-shirts saying gay people will burn in Hell.

"When will this warped totalitarian fairy tale end?"

Read FAITH CRIMES: How courageous Christians practicing their religion are being persecuted in Obama's America

In the United States, the Sweet Cakes case is just one of many in which Christian business owners are being punished and fined for their adherence to the biblical standard for marriage, as WND's Big List of Christian Coercion shows.

The issue will come to a head this summer with an expected ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court on marriage. Same-sex marriage already has been imposed on nearly three dozen states where voters rejected it.

Read all about "America's War on Christianity," by Brad O'Leary, who reports on issues from attacks on Christian holidays to homeschooling and courtroom assaults on faith and free speech.

Ashers General Manager Daniel McArthur said: "We've said from the start that our issue was with the message on the cake, not the customer and we didn't know what the sexual orientation of Mr. Lee was, and it wasn't relevant either. We've always been happy to serve any customers that come into our shops.

"The ruling suggests that all business owners will have to be willing to promote any cause or campaign no matter how much they disagree with it. Or as the Equality Commission has suggested, they should perhaps just close down, and that can't be right."

Ashers owners Colin and Karen McArthur were accused of violating the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations (NI) 2006 and The Fair Employment and Treatment (NI) Order 1998.

Daniel McArthur, whose parents are the company's principals, said the ruling suggests "all business owners must be willing to promote anything – no matter how much they disagree with it."

See his comments:

The Belfast Telegraph said the Ashers case is "about silencing and punishing those who refuse to sign up to a clearly flawed 'equality' agenda. This is an agenda that cannot distinguish between actual discrimination – which is always wrong, and rightly punishable by law – and the vital exercise of freedom of conscience."

The London Telegraph said, "Either a higher court needs to look at this again or parliament should revisit the law."

The commentary continued: "Why should they also be required to make a statement they do not agree with? Indeed, should freedom of conscience always be trumped by anti-discrimination rights?"

"This case raises profound and worrying questions about the balance between gay and religious rights," said The London Daily Mail. "Indeed, it highlights the argument for a conscience clause, protecting believers from being forced to go against the teachings of their faith."

The paper said the "most disturbing question is why the province's taxpayer-funded Equality Commission chose to pursue this spiteful prosecution, in a case that could so easily have been allowed to blow over with minimum offense to anyone's feelings."

The London Express said: "Surely the indignant gay couple could have respected the bakery's stance and gone somewhere else for their gay gateau and no harm would have been done. … Since when is it a crime for a private company to turn down work? Since now apparently."