Patterico's Pontifications

4/26/2015

Oregon Baker Fined $135,000 for Refusing to Make Cake for Lesbian Wedding, Resulting in “Mental Rape” of Couple

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 12:54 pm

An Oregon administrative law judge recommended today that the bakers who refused to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding should be fined $135,000.

“[T]he forum concludes that $75,000 and $60,000, are appropriate awards to compensate [the same-sex couple] for the emotional suffering they experienced,” wrote Alan McCullough, administrative law judge for Oregon’s Bureau of Labor and Industries in his proposed order.

. . . .

In order to reach $135,000, Rachel and Laurel submitted a long list of alleged physical, emotional and mental damages they claim to have experienced as a result of the Kleins’ unlawful conduct.

One of the women, whose name was redacted to protect her privacy, listed 88 symptoms as grounds for compensation. The other, whose name was also redacted, listed 90.

Examples of symptoms include “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.”

I’m surprised these people are able to tie their own shoes in the morning.

My advice: next time, instead of gaining a lot of weight, resuming your smoking habit, and comparing one business owner’s refusal of your business to rape, maybe just choose a different baker.

Although why anyone would take my advice when the state is willing to help them cash in based on obviously exaggerated and trumped-up damages, I have no idea.

Comments (66)

66 Responses to “Oregon Baker Fined $135,000 for Refusing to Make Cake for Lesbian Wedding, Resulting in “Mental Rape” of Couple”

Tear it all down and start over.
Patterico (9c670f) — 4/26/2015 @ 12:54 pm
Patterico–

http://hotair.com/archives/2015/04/26/gofundme-yanks-sweet-cakes-bakery-campaign/
elissa (d83127) — 4/26/2015 @ 1:02 pm
“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.”

Oh good grief, with the exception of feeling “mentally raped, dirty and shameful” and picking up the smokes again, most women experience these symptoms on a regular, monthly basis. Perhaps we should all be filing lawsuits! Against who, I’m not sure, but I bet there’s a man somewhere to blame because there always is, right?
Dana (86e864) — 4/26/2015 @ 1:07 pm
Here are the Rutles being shocked and stunned. This one’s for you Colonel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgttPt_1IG0
Gazzer (a3547c) — 4/26/2015 @ 1:18 pm
how does this couple even imagine that they can be a union?
This is going to be one long writ for divorce.
seeRpea (8fa79e) — 4/26/2015 @ 1:29 pm
this is crappy journalism made out of crap

wtf is a “recommended” fine?
happyfeet (831175) — 4/26/2015 @ 1:44 pm
and htf do you start smoking AND gain weight? Is that some kind of devious lesbo trick?
happyfeet (831175) — 4/26/2015 @ 1:45 pm
WHERE ARE MY DRAGONS
happyfeet (831175) — 4/26/2015 @ 1:46 pm
When I can’t have cake I get sad too.
Dustin (2a8be7) — 4/26/2015 @ 1:54 pm
the clerk whose job it was to vet this, was blinded by Daenerys’s dragons, and was hence put out of his misery,
narciso (ee1f88) — 4/26/2015 @ 2:09 pm
They say they experience both “loss of appetite” and “weight gain”. Absurd on its face.
Chuck Bartowski (11fb31) — 4/26/2015 @ 2:09 pm
Why would anyone want their wedding cake made by someone who doesn’t want to make it? Aren’t they afraid the flavor would be off?
Steven Den Beste (99cfa1) — 4/26/2015 @ 2:13 pm
An Oregon administrative law judge

I bet you he’s the type of idiot who’d also do back flips to protect the rights of Islamic fanatics, which is why if such members of this society do end up the ultimate victims of Sharia-ism encroaching throughout the West, they’ll have only themselves to blame.
Mark (607f93) — 4/26/2015 @ 2:15 pm
“Perhaps we should all be filing lawsuits!”

Dana – Looks like it’s cheaper than buying lottery tickets.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 4/26/2015 @ 2:16 pm
you are not of the body, daley, the very notion indicates this is crimethink,
narciso (ee1f88) — 4/26/2015 @ 2:18 pm
Bigots like this used to refuse to cater inter-racial weddings saying it was against their religion till the courts fined them to stop it.
anti-bigots (c8c7c0) — 4/26/2015 @ 2:19 pm
wonder how much of a tax bite there will be?
PeterK (3e1527) — 4/26/2015 @ 2:19 pm
When Hillary becomes president she’s going to force everybody to get rid of those nasty religious beliefs, well maybe not the Muslims, because everybody is scared of them.

The White House will sell shreds of the Constitution under President Queen Pro Quo.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 4/26/2015 @ 2:21 pm
Portlandia!
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 4/26/2015 @ 2:24 pm
==The White House will sell shreds of the Constitution under President Queen Pro Quo.==

Well yeah. That’s a whole lot more efficient in raising cash from “donors” than selling single nights in the Lincoln bedroom, daley!
elissa (6df047) — 4/26/2015 @ 2:28 pm
Colonel, check out my post at #4
Gazzer (a3547c) — 4/26/2015 @ 2:32 pm
what about the counter-balancing list of symptoms, which I have no doubt they also have (symptoms) – among which, I just bet, would be things like “glee, laughter, feelings fade of superiority, happiness at having more money, drunkeness from over-indulging in the champagne…”
Bh (10d109) — 4/26/2015 @ 2:33 pm
Why would anyone want their wedding cake made by someone who doesn’t want to make it?

Similarly, I wonder what type of people would want to attend a function hosted by such extremist customers? The two women probably are obnoxious leftwing types, perhaps even stereotypical unpleasant “bull dykes” who run around with the rainbow flag unfurled and flying, and will be divorced from each other in a number of years.
Mark (607f93) — 4/26/2015 @ 2:39 pm
That’s a great one, Gazzer! I’d like to get that on DVD.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 4/26/2015 @ 2:42 pm
I have it and it is a very well written film especially if you are familiar with Beatles history and lore. A great parody. Right up there with Spinal Tap.
Gazzer (a3547c) — 4/26/2015 @ 3:25 pm
Why not just make a really shi**y cake?
Capitalist Infidel (20d716) — 4/26/2015 @ 3:39 pm
Greetings:

Back in the mid-70s, I had a temporary job adjudicating worker’s compensation claims for the Federal government. One of the ways the honest doctors telegraphed their suspicions about phony claims was to refer to “subjective reports of pain”.

But times do change now don’t they. When they’re not fundamentally transforming that is.
11B40 (0f96be) — 4/26/2015 @ 3:43 pm
Weight gain? Moar cake!
SarahW (6f3980) — 4/26/2015 @ 3:46 pm
3 %ers get it baked
mg (31009b) — 4/26/2015 @ 3:53 pm
One bridezilla per wedding is too many. Two of them plus an evil judge for hire is right out..
papertiger (c2d6da) — 4/26/2015 @ 3:56 pm
Why would anyone want their wedding cake made by someone who doesn’t want to make it? Aren’t they afraid the flavor would be off?

They were targeted of course.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/26/2015 @ 3:58 pm
If they keep pushing as hard as they are, this thing is gonna break.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/26/2015 @ 3:59 pm
Bigots like this used to refuse to cater inter-racial weddings saying it was against their religion till the courts fined them to stop it.

Anti-bigot, I’d love to see your examples. I think you are full of shit.
Mike K (90dfdc) — 4/26/2015 @ 4:03 pm
I certainly hope that Roberts and Kennedy look at this and decide that establishing SSM opens up too many cans of worms, and I hope the opinion says so.

Really that would be the best argument against a federal 14th Amendment “right” — that it cuts too deeply into the established practices of society to be imposed by mere judges.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/26/2015 @ 4:03 pm
This judicial nonsense needed to be nullified. I suggest emailing melissa@sweetcakesweb.com requesting a way to donate directly since GoFundMe has buckled under to pressure from all the special little snowflakes that countenance this sort of religious bigotry.
PPs43 (6fdef4) — 4/26/2015 @ 5:12 pm
Well these ladies are in to licking. And I stepped in something on the sidewalk, and as far as I’m concerned, I have a job for them. Lick the soles of my shoes.
Comanche Voter (1d5c8b) — 4/26/2015 @ 5:52 pm
The Daily Mail says that one of the brides came to this bakery for a cake because she had bought a cake there for her mother’s wedding. The bakery used that fact to support its claim that it doesn’t discriminate against gays. The gay couple and, apparently, the court viewed that as evidence the bakery does discriminate — because it would decorate and sell a cake for a straight wedding but not for a gay wedding.

I guess it’s hard for some liberals to view this as persecution of Christians, perhaps because Christians have been in the majority in the past. It’s similar to the attitude liberals have toward white men like the Columbia “rape mattress” student — that they can’t be the victims of discrimination — also because white men have not been in the minority. But if these were any other groups of people, I think liberals would be much more concerned about their rights.
DRJ (e80d46) — 4/26/2015 @ 6:25 pm
The Supreme Court should look at all of this and decide that the time is not right. Clearly society is divided on the subject and it is something that needs to be wrung out in the normal political process.

The level of bullying, lawfare and vigilantism attempting to force everyone to submit, overriding all other freedoms, belies the claims of SSM proponents that the matter is settled. The Court should decline to empower such behavior, and suggest they should come back when they’re prepared to act like adults.

In short, give them a “time out.”
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/26/2015 @ 6:34 pm
I think the conservatives on the Supreme Court will be reluctant and/or refuse to take any of this into consideration. The role of the courts is to decide the law, not participate in politics. It’s up to the legislatures/Congress to write laws and the courts to interpret them. Unfortunately, this is hard to do with issues like religion, as well as liberal topics like abortion, sexual reproduction, etc.
DRJ (e80d46) — 4/26/2015 @ 6:51 pm
I guess it’s hard for some liberals to view this as persecution of Christians

What goes around, comes around.

The US and the Western World in general are returning to a pagan way of life, with all the forms of corruption (socio-economic) thereof—and, oddly enough, with Sharia-ism waiting in the wings.

Lucky us.

catholicworldreport.com, May 2012: Contrary to the popular view — both among proponents and opponents — gay marriage is not a new issue. It cannot be couched (by proponents) as a seamless advance on the civil rights movement, nor should it be understood (by opponents) as something that’s evil merely because it appears to them to be morally unprecedented. Gay marriage was — surprise! — alive and well in Rome, celebrated even and especially by select emperors, a spin-off of the general cultural affirmation of Roman homosexuality. Gay marriage was, along with homosexuality, something the first Christians faced as part of the pagan moral darkness of their time.

What Christians are fighting against today, then, is not yet another sexual innovation peculiar to our “enlightened age,” but the return to pre-Christian, pagan sexual morality.

So, what was happening in ancient Rome? Homosexuality was just as widespread among the Romans as it was among the Greeks (a sign of which is that it was condoned even by the stolid Stoics). The Romans had adopted the pederasty of the Greeks (aimed, generally, at boys between the ages of 12 to 18). There was nothing shameful about such sexual relations among Romans, if the boy was not freeborn. Slaves, both male and female, were considered property, and that included sexual property.

But the Romans also extended homosexuality to adult men, even adult free men. And it is likely that this crossing of the line from child to adult, unfree to free — not homosexuality as such — was what affronted the more austere of the Roman moralists. And so we hear from Tacitus (56-117 AD), the great Roman historian, of the shameful sexual exploits of a string of Roman emperors from Tiberius to Nero.

Martial, the first-century A.D. Roman poet, reports incidences of male-male marriage as kinds of perversions, but not uncommon perversions, speaking in one epigram (I.24) of a man who “played the bride yesterday.” In another (12.42) he says mockingly, “Bearded Callistratus gave himself in marriage to…Afer, in the manner in which a virgin usually gives herself in marriage to a male… A dowry was also named. Does that not seem enough yet for you, Rome? Are you waiting for him to give birth?”

The notoriously debauched emperor Elagabalus (ruled 218-222) married and then divorced five women. But he considered his male chariot driver to be his “husband,” and he also married one Zoticus, an athlete. Elagabalus loved to dress up as a queen, quite literally.

As is the case today, it appears that the incidence of male-male marriage followed upon the widespread acceptance of homosexuality; that is, the practice of homosexuality led to the notion that, somehow, homosexual unions should share in the same status as heterosexual unions.

We must also add that heterosexuality among the Romans was also in a sad state. Both concubinage and prostitution were completely acceptable; pornography and sexually explicit entertainment and speech were entirely normalized; the provision of sex by both male and female slaves was considered a duty by masters. Paeans to the glory of marriage were made, not because the Romans had some proto-Christian notion of the sanctity of marriage, but because Rome needed more citizen-soldiers just when the Romans were depopulating themselves by doing anything to avoid having children.

…Christians face nothing new in regard to the push for gay marriage. In fact, it is something quite old, and represents a return to the pagan views of sexuality that dominated the Roman Empire into which Christianity was born.
Mark (607f93) — 4/26/2015 @ 7:37 pm
I think the conservatives on the Supreme Court will be reluctant and/or refuse to take any of this into consideration. The role of the courts is to decide the law, not participate in politics. It’s up to the legislatures/Congress to write laws and the courts to interpret them. Unfortunately, this is hard to do with issues like religion, as well as liberal topics like abortion, sexual reproduction, etc.

DRJ (e80d46) — 4/26/2015 @ 6:51 pm

Except unlike “abortion, sexual reproduction, etc…”, free exercise of religion is in the constitution.
Tanny O'Haley (c674c7) — 4/26/2015 @ 8:58 pm
38. …The level of bullying, lawfare and vigilantism attempting to force everyone to submit, overriding all other freedoms, belies the claims of SSM proponents that the matter is settled. The Court should decline to empower such behavior, and suggest they should come back when they’re prepared to act like adults.

In short, give them a “time out.”

Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/26/2015 @ 6:34 pm

But they’ll never act like adults, as the point of SSM is to empower themselves to act this way. Feminism works the same way. There is no end to the increasingly insane demands they can make, no logical stopping point.
Steve57 (08cad4) — 4/26/2015 @ 8:58 pm
much as we may disagree about the issue, the plurality of people in the USA think that no exemption from providing wedding items should be allowed on religious grounds (well , at least Christian religion. I don’t think the polls questions say generic religious) so it is not going to be a ground swell of public support to turn the tide.

I wonder if it would pass legal muster for such places to put up a sign that they will only provide for weddings that are officiated by certain churches/synagogues/mosques/what-have-you ?
seeRpea (8fa79e) — 4/26/2015 @ 9:32 pm
re #40, I think that is a good way of putting it. Society is not just going down the drain, it is returning to paganism.
seeRpea (8fa79e) — 4/26/2015 @ 9:33 pm
Judge needs to be run out on a rail.

This is going to get ugly soon if the left doesn’t back off. How long do they expect to keep trying to destroy people’s lives before people start to fight back?
NJRob (d36337) — 4/26/2015 @ 11:03 pm
much as we may disagree about the issue, the plurality of people in the USA think that no exemption from providing wedding items should be allowed on religious grounds (well , at least Christian religion. I don’t think the polls questions say generic religious) so it is not going to be a ground swell of public support to turn the tide.

I wonder if it would pass legal muster for such places to put up a sign that they will only provide for weddings that are officiated by certain churches/synagogues/mosques/what-have-you ?

seeRpea (8fa79e) — 4/26/2015 @ 9:32 pm

And a vast majority less than 10 years ago said marriage was between a man and a woman. Shaming works. Attacking people works. Caring about something and threatening those that don’t care works.

P.S. The Constitution is not a popularity contest.
NJRob (d36337) — 4/26/2015 @ 11:05 pm
Unfortunately, the prevailing winds preclude just nuking Oregon to get it over with.

We’ll just have to hope they tumble into the sea with San Francisco, and soon.
Estragon (ada867) — 4/27/2015 @ 3:12 am
oregon is where louis and clark went on their big road trip

they had many adventures
happyfeet (831175) — 4/27/2015 @ 3:23 am
lewis?
happyfeet (831175) — 4/27/2015 @ 3:24 am
Once again we see that some lifestyles are inherently totalitarian.
ErisGuy (76f8a7) — 4/27/2015 @ 4:16 am
the plurality of people in the USA think that no exemption from providing wedding items should be allowed on religious grounds

By religious grounds, one means first amendment. A majority of people usually wish to suspend someone’s human rights.
ErisGuy (76f8a7) — 4/27/2015 @ 4:18 am
Bigots like this used to refuse to cater inter-racial weddings saying it was against their religion till the courts fined them to stop it.

And courts were wrong then to..
ErisGuy (76f8a7) — 4/27/2015 @ 4:19 am
Two centuries ago Oregon was big in the fur trade. Looks like the market is picking up again
Gordon Pasha (e67fc8) — 4/27/2015 @ 4:54 am
When people have been oppressed, suppressed, repressed and depressed by evil Christian fundies their whole lives…and seek an evil Christian fundie to do their wedding, the smell test becomes redundant.
Among other things, isn’t there a gay baker/florist/photographer who could use the business?
Richard Aubrey (ebf6de) — 4/27/2015 @ 4:54 am
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/416421/church-left-yuval-levin

…Madison’s case against an established church, perhaps most notably in his 1785 “Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments,” was rooted in a core principle of religious liberty that is particularly important to remember in the kinds of debates we have seen in the last few years: That religious freedom is not a freedom to do what you want, but a freedom to do what you must. It’s not a freedom from constraint, but a recognition of a constraint higher than even the law and therefore prior to it and deserving of some leeway from legal obligations when reasonably possible. (And remember, Indiana’s law says only that when such freedom is burdened, it should be clear to a judge that it was so for a compelling reason and that no less burdensome alternative was available.) Madison put the point this way:

It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage and such only as he believes to be acceptable to Him. This duty is precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society.

It is important to note that Madison was making this case not in the context of arguing for permitting the free exercise of religion but rather in the context of arguing against the establishment of any religion by law. His point was that no one ought to be compelled to affirm as true a religious tenet he took to be false and that no one should be compelled to participate in a religious rite that violated his own understanding of his religious obligations.

…But this is also the essence of the argument that a wedding vendor who wants to remain free to refrain from participating in a same-sex wedding would advance. The question of the definition of marriage is, for many people, a fundamentally religious question. It is, of course, also a civil question in our country. But some religiously orthodox wedding vendors are finding themselves effectively compelled by the civil authorities to affirm an answer to that question that violates their understanding of their religious obligations.

…Liberals are in this respect right to say they’re not trying to kill religious liberty. They’re trying to take it back to something like the form it had in the Anglo-American world when the Anglo-American world had a formal state religion—except now the state religion is supposed to be progressive liberalism.

It was very astute of Mark to say we are in a sense returning to paganism. Ancient Rome had its state religion. And you could worship any god in the state approved pantheon, but you had to worship the Emperor like a god. That was the main beef the Romans had with Christians, and it’s still the main problem the pagans have with Christians.
Steve57 (08cad4) — 4/27/2015 @ 5:40 am
Tammy,

The Court has interpreted the 14th Amendment to provide a right to privacy when it comes to personal matters like abortion, sexual freedom, etc.
DRJ (e80d46) — 4/27/2015 @ 6:04 am
Sorry, that should have said Tanny, not Tammy.
DRJ (e80d46) — 4/27/2015 @ 6:05 am
and if you got that cake go on and bake it guuurll!

shake that cakey booty!
happyfeet (a037ad) — 4/27/2015 @ 6:06 am
DRJ @56, that just shows there’s something very, very wrong with our courts today. The people who passed the 14th Amendment thought they were protecting a right to privacy that guaranteed sexual freedom?

Funny they never had a problem with sodomy laws, if that’s the case.
Steve57 (08cad4) — 4/27/2015 @ 6:30 am
whose name was redacted to protect her privacy

Hey, nice way to start a marriage: some right wing conservative Christian’s head on a pike!

Of course, the offending bakery had its name plastered all over the media. Just in case someone wanted to protest or, say, burn it down.
Patricia (5fc097) — 4/27/2015 @ 7:44 am
Lewis was there, too.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/27/2015 @ 8:12 am
Perhaps the bakers should say: We make cakes for all weddings, but all our wedding cakes have a bride and groom on the top. If that doesn’t suit you, feel free to change it.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/27/2015 @ 8:14 am
Just in case someone wanted to protest or, say, burn it down.

That’s kinda how Jim Crow worked.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/27/2015 @ 8:15 am
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/417540/freedom-conscience-wins-round-david-french

My good friends at the Alliance Defending Freedom (full disclosure: I worked for ADF for a number of years and continue to speak at ADF events) just won a key decision in a Lexington, Kentucky trial court on behalf of “Hands On Originals,” a custom printing company. Hands On Originals (HOO) refused to print t-shirts for a 2012 gay pride parade, and the organizers filed a complaint before the local human rights commission. HOO was one of three t-shirt companies the gay pride parade organizers contacted, and when HOO refused the order, the group was easily able to find an alternative vendor. The commission, however, ruled against the company, and the company appealed to the circuit court.

…In response, the human rights commission argued that it wasn’t trying to infringe violate the Wooley principle, but merely trying to mandate the HOO ”treat everyone the same.” Yet, as the court noted, HOO did, in fact, treat “homosexual and heterosexual groups the same:”

In 2010, 2011, and 2012, HOO declined to print at least thirteen (13) orders for message-based reasons. Those print orders that were refused by HOO included shirts promoting a strip club, pens promoting a sexually explicit video, and shirts containing a violence-related message. There is further evidence in the [Human Rights] Commission record that it is standard practice within the promotional printing industry to decline to print materials containing messages that the owners do not want to support. Nonetheless the Commission punished HOO for declining to print messages advocating sexual activity to which HOO and its owners strongly oppose on sincerely held religious grounds.

Yet despite knowing that what this company was doing is standard practice, the Human Rights Commission tried to force them to do it anyway.

This gets to the heart of the matter. It’s not that various state agencies are truly trying to end discrimination — indeed, each and every besieged florist, baker, or pizza maker would happily serve gay or straight customers — they’re attempting to conscript private businesses into celebrating and honoring specific, religiously-significant actions, like same-sex marriage or other forms sexual immorality. Expressive businesses like t-shirt companies have long refused work from straight citizens who seek to enlist them in spreading morally-objectionable messages, yet there is simply no wave of “human rights” commission fines in response to other message-based denials of service.

This isn’t about “treating everyone the same.” It’s a about the state establishing a religion, and forcing people to participate in the rites.
Steve57 (08cad4) — 4/27/2015 @ 11:23 am
Based on their symptoms, they are a couple of overweight, unhealthy chain-smoking lesbians. I’d want my name redacted too.
Georganne (e37667) — 4/28/2015 @ 7:32 am
reversal of Alinsky effect?
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/04/27/making-the-trolls-pay-how-one-uk-company-made-1-million-in-four-days-from-furious-social-justice-warriors/
seeRpea (49f72d) — 4/30/2015 @ 6:45 am

4/26/2015

Oregon Baker Fined $135,000 for Refusing to Make Cake for Lesbian Wedding, Resulting in “Mental Rape” of Couple

66 Responses to “Oregon Baker Fined $135,000 for Refusing to Make Cake for Lesbian Wedding, Resulting in “Mental Rape” of Couple”

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