This is something that the gay community and their liberal backers can feel proud of. Andrew Johnson at National Review Online’s The Corner reports:
Constant protests and death threats have forced the owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa, a Gresham, Ore., family bakery whose refusal to make a wedding cake for a gay couple triggered a state investigation, to close its doors.
[…]
After owner Aaron Klein declined to bake a cake for a same-sex couple in January because of his Christian faith, LGBT activists ‘badgered and harassed’ the bakery with protests and boycotts, as well as any other businesses that Sweet Cakes by Melissa collaborated with; Klein said he and his family also received death threats.
The lesbian couple that originally asked for the cake also filed a discrimination complaint with the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries. Last month, the bureau announced it would investigate the complaint.
The commissioner of the bureau said, “Everybody is entitled to their [sic] own beliefs, but that doesn’t mean that folks have the right to discriminate,” Translation: You are entitled to your own beliefs as long as they are the correct beliefs.
“The goal,” the commish went on, “is to rehabilitate.” He didn’t state which side in the debate he felt was in need of rehabilitation, but somehow one gets the distinct sense that he wasn’t thinking of the lesbian couple.
The now-empty store has a sign in the window reading “Religious freedom is under attack in Gresham.” Let’s assume for the moment that Klein’s religious convictions hold no weight or are irrelevant. Aren’t the boycotts that forced him to close his business a form of sabotage or coercion, akin to protection rackets?
