The owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa, the Oregon bakery that refused to make a cake for a same-sex wedding, have not only been ordered to pay more than $100,000 in emotional damages but have also had a gag order placed against them to prevent them from publicly speaking about how their Christian faith dictated their decision.
In finalizing a preliminary hearing on Thursday, Oregon Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian ordered the owners of the bakery, Aaron and Melissa Klein, to pay $135,000 in emotional damages to the lesbian couple they refused to serve, reported The Daily Signal.
"This case is not about a wedding cake or a marriage," Avakian wrote. "It is about a business's refusal to serve someone because of their sexual orientation. Under Oregon law, that is illegal."
As The Daily Signal reports, the gay couple said the Kleins' refusal to serve them resulted in the following emotional and mental damages: "acute loss of confidence," "doubt," "excessive sleep," "felt mentally raped, dirty and shameful," "high blood pressure," "impaired digestion," "loss of appetite," "migraine headaches," "pale and sick at home after work," "resumption of smoking habit," "shock," "stunned," "surprise," "uncertainty," "weight gain" and "worry."
In response to the Kleins speaking in an interview with Family Research Council's Tony Perkins, Avakian issued a gag order to force them to "cease and desist" from speaking publicly about how their Christian beliefs were the driving factor behind their decision to not bake cakes for same-sex weddings.
Avakian writes: "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," reports Breitbart.
The Kleins refused to take the fight lying down, issuing the following statement:
"This effectively strips us of all our First Amendment rights," the Kleins wrote on their Facebook page. "According to the state of Oregon we neither have freedom of religion or freedom of speech. We will NOT give up this fight, and we will NOT be silenced. We stand for God's truth, God's word and freedom for ALL Americans. We are here to obey God not man, and we will not conform to this world. If we were to lose everything it would be totally worth it for our Lord who gave his one and only son, Jesus, for us! God will win this fight!"
