Discriminivacation: Sweet Cakes
Ohmygod, Sweet Cakes, I need a minute.
So this is where Sweet Cakes by Melissa used to be. It’s now a spice store in between a vape shop and a tattoo parlor in Gresham, Oregon just outside of Portland.
Whathadhappenedwas... a woman showed up at a scheduled appointment to discuss wedding cake options. She brought her mother along to help with the selection. The bakery was previously known to the customer as they had created a custom wedding cake for her mother’s remarriage. The date was January of 2013. The marriages of gay couples were not yet legally recognized by the state but gay people had been protected from discrimination since 2008.
Sweet Cakes was a husband and wife team and on that particular day, Aaron Klein (husband) was handling the consultation. Upon learning that the customers were a gay couple, Aaron Klein refused them service while quoting a Levitical passage (that calls for the execution of gay people).
The couple end up filing an official complain with the state’s civil rights department. Sweet Cakes received notification of the complaint from the state and Aaron Klein posted a copy of the complaint on his facebook page saying “this is what happens when you tell gay people you won’t do their ‘wedding cake.’” The published complaint included the gay couple’s personal address and phone number. Posting the complaint was rude but it wasn’t illegal being that the information on the complaint was a matter of public record and anyone could obtain it. Upon request, Klein immediately removed the facebook post.
Sweet Cakes had decided that they were going to apply biblical law to their customers but it appeared that they were a bit hypocritical in their application. The Willamette Week called to request a few “unbiblical” cakes and it appeared that Sweet Cakes were happy to “support” several other sins. Sweet Cakes was totally willing to bake cakes celebrating out-of-wedlock childbirth, divorce, stem cell research, and even pagan solstice parties. Apparently being gay was just one step too far.
The Oregon civil rights commission and the courts ruled that Sweet Cakes had violated the law by refusing service based on the customer’s sexual orientation. They were ordered to pay $135,000 in damages to the gay couple. Multiple crowd-funding pages were set up for the bakers and they raked in about half a million dollars in donations. Despite their cash windfall, they decided to close their bakery in 2016.
Sweet Cakes appealed the state court decision against them to the Supreme Court, arguing that selling a cake is “speech” and should not be governed by our civil rights laws. Like with the Arlene’s Flowers case, the Supreme Court vacated the lower court ruling in light of the developments with a related case (Masterpiece Cakeshop). Oregon will decide whether or not to continue to press this issue.
The point with these cake decorating lawsuits is this; these bakeries are claiming that they’re not refusing service because the customers are gay but instead because the customers are asking them to create a product to which they hold some sort of significant moral opposition.
This is bullshit.
The products that these gay customers are requesting are no different from that which the business regularly provides for other customers. These gay couples aren’t requesting any sort of wording or imagery (actual speech) that is any different than what the bakeries gladly sell to other customers.
A straight couple enters a bakery, points at a picture on the wall or a display in a case and says “I’d like a tiered cake with white frosting just like that one.” Five minutes later, a gay couple enters the same bakery and makes the exact same request. The straight couple is served with a smile and the gay couple is refused service. Don’t fucking tell me that it isn’t discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
Sweet Cakes wants to chip away at the Civil Rights Act. They want to make it legal for businesses to use their (often plastic) religious beliefs as an excuse to refuse service to gay customers (or black customers or Jewish customers etc.). It’s wrong. It’s just plain wrong.
