Homosexualists destroy another Christian business

More homosexualist attacks on traditional values.

From Todd Starnes at FNC:

A family-owned Christian bakery, under investigation for refusing to bake a wedding cake for a lesbian couple, has been forced to close its doors after a vicious boycott by militant homosexual activists.

Sweet Cakes By Melissa posted a message on its Facebook page alerting customers that their Gresham, Ore. retail store would be shut down after months of harassment from pro-gay marriage forces.

“Better is a poor man who walks in integrity than a rich man who is crooked in his ways,” read a posting from Proverbs on the bakery’s Facebook page.

“The LGBT attacks are the reason we are shutting down the shop. They have killed our business through mob tactics.”
– Aaron Klein, owner, Sweet Cakes By Melissa

“It’s a sad day for Christian business owners and it’s a sad day for the First Amendment,” owner Aaron Klein told me. “The LGBT attacks are the reason we are shutting down the shop. They have killed our business through mob tactics.”

[…]

They won’t stop until the age of consent is eliminated.

Even then they won’t stop.

They won’t stop until the Valar step aside and the One destroys Númenor.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
This entry was posted in Liberals, Religious Liberty, The Coming Storm, The future and our choices, The Last Acceptable Prejudice and tagged . Bookmark the permalink.

69 Comments

  1. APX says:

    Ugh! I know where this bakery is and have been there when visiting my brother and his wife live in Gresham, OR. This is retardedly sad and despicable. Privately owned businesses have always had the privilege of “the right to refuse business/service”.

    It’s time to start private underground Catholic retailers and services.

  2. ocalatrad says:

    The increasing acceptance of homosexuals among Catholic parishes and the hierarchy in their statements and public gatherings, such as diocesan LGBT-outreach, are only affirming the homosexuals in their sodomy and degradation. This is truly disturbing. If the faithful do not take a firm and concrete stance against sodomy, it will spread like a necrosis over this land.

  3. mcford1 says:

    A fact that came out in previous articles about this story is that the bakery never refused to serve homosexuals–in fact, they willingly served their products to customers who were openly gay, and in fact were repeat customers. There is no “hate” here, customers are customers. What the bakery did was refuse to participate in providing a custom-made product for specific ceremony that CELEBRATED AND PROMOTED the gay lifestyle in and of itself–a gay “wedding.” One of the great ironies is that in Oregon, single-sex “marriage” is not even a legal construct–it has been repeatedly rejected by voters–so the bakery is now being prosecuted for refusing to participate in a ceremony that has no legal standing in the first place. If anyone is upholding the law here, it is the bakery, and if anyone is violating it, it is the attorney general of Oregon.

  4. James C says:

    Why didn’t people support them? When Dan Cathy’s comments about “gay marriage” caused a firestorm to engulf Chick-Fil-A, people backed them up. On Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day, I went to get a chicken sandwich but was overwhelmed by huge lines—and I was at a location in suburban Boston, Massachusetts!

    If I lived in Oregon, I’d be stuffing myself with baked goods right now. That’s the problem with American Catholics today: no solidarity because we are divided against ourselves, and any influence we could project in the public square is easily neutralised by the secularists.

  5. Cantor says:

    I’m not certain how broad the “public accommodation” law extends.

    When I wanted some construction work done, I sent information to several contractors and requested bids. Some chose to bid, some did not. Did I somehow have the “right” to insist that a contractor who declined to bid HAD to do the work for me, at the lowest bidder’s rate?

    Or could the bakery say, “We decorate heterosexually-styled wedding cakes only, and will sell them to anybody”?

  6. NBW says:

    These protesters are just like the Nazi brown shirts in Germany in the 1930’s -40’s. They harass and bully to get their way and the government encourages it.

  7. Bob B. says:

    Even a Supreme Court justice (Ginsburg) officiated a gay “marriage” recently. Why don’t we elect them again?
    The tail has wagged the dog too many times, this has got to stop or we will all find ourselves in re-education camps run by the Obama’s and Biden’s and Pelosi’s of the world.

  8. Darren says:

    The last line of the article sums it all up:

    <>

  9. Darren says:

    Oops! What I meant was…

    The last line of the article sums it all up: The plight of the Klein family exposes the true nature of the left. Those who preach tolerance and diversity are the least tolerant and the least diverse of all.

  10. wmeyer says:

    James C: If memory serves, Oregon was the first state to support assisted suicide. It is one of the most liberal states, and even the Catholic population, I expect, is pretty liberal. It is, after all, the home of OCP.

  11. Supertradmum says:

    The reason so many Catholics accept gay marriage is that they cannot think objectively about evil, but only subjectively. I have some thoughts on this here. Many Catholics will go to the dark side over this subject of ssm and help the seculars persecute the good Catholics. This has all happened before…

    http://supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.ie/2013/08/many-catholics-will-fall-away-in.html

  12. TimG says:

    The story about Ginsberg makes me sick. She was obviously waiting for the opportunity to publically announce her support for SSM (regardless of what she claims) and unfortunately given the structure of the SC, she is untouchable. Here in Iowa we at least have the option to vote the state SC out of “office”, us radicals booted three of them in 2010.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/03/us/politics/03judges.html?pagewanted=all

  13. Moro says:

    Say the prayer to St. Michael often and don’t give up hope. Say it as part of your regular prayer. Say it after mass, even if that means you do so privately. It is long overdue for us to take up our battle armour to ward off satan’s attacks

  14. Chris Garton-Zavesky says:

    Four legs good; two legs bad.

  15. netokor says:

    “And as they liked not to have God in their knowledge, God delivered them up to a reprobate sense, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all iniquity, malice, fornication, avarice, wickedness, full of envy, murder, contention, deceit, malignity, whisperers, Detractors, hateful to God, contumelious, proud, haughty, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Foolish, dissolute, without affection, without fidelity, without mercy. Who, having known the justice of God, did not understand that they who do such things, are worthy of death; and not only they that do them, but they also that consent to them that do them.”

  16. Bea says:

    TEOTWAWKI

    Sodom and Gomorrah revisited.

    It was the gays lack of hospitality that did S&G in.
    They wanted to force the angels into their lifestyle.

    Many of us (by accounts of posters on the sermons they were subjected to, including myself) were recently told it was the “lack of hospitality” that did S&G in. Of course now it will be twisted around and we will be told it was the bakers lack of hospitality, when in fact it is the SSM and their LGBT counterparts that are inhospitable when they try to force God-fearing people into THEIR lifestyle.

  17. Giuseppe says:

    Mcford1 – thanks for sharing some of the background to this case. As the business closed after a public boycott, how was the attorney general of Oregon involved? Why?

  18. Marion Ancilla Mariae says:

    I wish that vulnerable service providers – such as bakers, wedding photographers, musicians, etc – would band together and set up referral services. The way it might work is that the baker and the photographer explain to all comers that they no longer accept bookings for weddings directly from anybody, instead prospective customers are invited to call the clearinghouse referral service, speak with a staffer, and to answer a few brief questions about the event and their needs. The clearinghouse referral service has on hand a listing of local providers who are or are not interested in working with couples for same-sex union ceremonies, and a display of everyone’s schedule. The staffer punches up the names of some providers selected according to their willingness to work for same-sex events, or not, and also takes a look at their schedules. The staffer then provides the relevant information pertaining to 3-5 providers to the caller, tells them their schedules look tentatively good, and suggests to the caller that they should now call the provider directly to confirm and to go over the details.

    If asked why the referral service is used, the answer is, “it makes scheduling easier,” – true! and if asked why a particular vendor isn’t provided to a particular caller, the answer, “their schedule.” (Which is true. As in “our firm can’t do gay weddings until after the final trump sounds . . . and even then.”) And if asked for criteria by which any the name of any given vendor is given to any given caller, the answer should be “scheduling availability.”

  19. apward says:

    Thus in after days… they taught that, while the new world fell away, the old road and the path of the memory of the West still went on… and traversed Ilmen which flesh unaided cannot endure, until it came to Tol Eressea, the Lonely Isle, and maybe even beyond, to Valinor, where the Valar still dwell and watch the unfolding of the story of the world.

  20. Palladio says:

    Have mainstream media covered this? My wife and I know better than to challenge the secular orthodoxy on this one in the workplace. Few things could get you fired quicker than sharing politically incorrect opinions.

  21. mcford1 says:

    Giuseppe, in answer to your question: it’s hinted at in the first sentence of the article: “A family-owned Christian bakery, UNDER INVESTIGATION for refusing to bake a wedding cake for a lesbian couple…”
    The bakery has been under investigation for violation of accomodation and discrimination laws by the state labor commissioner and attorney general. The labor commissioner specifically justified the investigation by saying, ““Everybody is entitled to their own beliefs, but that doesn’t mean that folks have the right to discriminate. The goal is to rehabilitate. For those who do violate the law, we want them to learn from that experience and have a good, successful business in Oregon.”
    The term “rehabilitate,” of course, has a long and very dark etymology in the history of state-sanctioned persecution of dissenters in totalitarian regimes, and I find it hard to believe that the labor commissioner used the word accidentally. The immediate cause of the bakery’s shutdown may have been threats and protests by LGBT activists; but if that had not done the trick, then most assuredly the high legal costs the bakery would have incurred by attempting to resist government “rehabilitation” would have been the final nail in the coffin.

  22. Del says:

    Tip of the spear. The great persecution is upon us.

    American culture has never known persecution — but Catholic culture has. Be courageous Americans, and strive to rescue our culture. But be savvy Catholics, and teach your children how to live lives of truth underground.

  23. Salvelinus says:

    Big surprise, the supposed “most tolerant” of the groups are being intolerant of Christianity.
    Reminds me of the recent mod-rule at the Austin TX statehouse I experienced regarding the 24-week abortion ban.

  24. Salvelinus says:

    … i meant “mob-rule” even though plenty of the my fellow “mod”(ernist) Catholics brothers and sisters are in support of these horrors…

  25. This is a truly sad story, Fr. Z. I feel huge respect towards the family for closing down the shop, which is their livelihood, rather than compromising on what Our Lord has taught. May He bless them!

  26. ghp95134 says:

    Look for signs & graffitti soon:
    Do Not Buy From This Store
    Hetero Swine Shop Here
    † HETERO-Christian †
    BULLY !!!!

    Homo-Kristalnacht begins. We soon might be forced to wear an armband indentifying us as Heterosexuals-Unwilling-to-Change.

    Okay, a bit hyperbolic on my part. But …..

    –Guy

  27. The Masked Chicken says:

    “Everybody is entitled to their own beliefs, but that doesn’t mean that folks have the right to discriminate. The goal is to rehabilitate. For those who do violate the law, we want them to learn from that experience and have a good, successful business in Oregon.”

    May I just say that this is incoherent? If you can’t discriminate, then, you, literally, believe in nothing, for, by the act of believing, you say: this is true. What the person really is saying is that, while everyone has a right to their own, “truth,” only the Big Bad Government can tell you what is actually true. Sometimes (maybe it is me getting crotchety), I feel like telling these people to sit down and shut up. They don’t care about truth. They should be spanked and sent to bed without supper. Ohhhh, this sort of mindless idiocy makes me mad. Some people think that having money or power equals having truth. In the end their ideas of truth are usually sterile. These supporters of gay rights are nothing but breeders of mules.

    The Chicken

  28. Jim R says:

    Here is the applicable part of the Oregon Statute (there is quite a bit more and certain qualifications):
    http://landru.leg.state.or.us/ors/659a.html
    ACCESS TO PUBLIC ACCOMMODATIONS
    (Unlawful Discrimination in Public Accommodations)
    659A.400 Place of public accommodation defined. (1) A place of public accommodation, subject to the exclusion in subsection (2) of this section, means any place or service offering to the public accommodations, advantages, facilities or privileges whether in the nature of goods, services, lodgings, amusements or otherwise.
    (2)…
    659A.403 Discrimination in place of public accommodation prohibited. (1) Except as provided in subsection (2) of this section, all persons within the jurisdiction of this state are entitled to the full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities and privileges of any place of public accommodation, without any distinction, discrimination or restriction on account of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, marital status or age if the individual is 18 years of age or older.
    (2) …
    (3) It is an unlawful practice for any person to deny full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities and privileges of any place of public accommodation in violation of this section. [Formerly 30.670; 2003 c.521 §1; 2005 c.131 §1; 2007 c.100 §5]

    The law is simple: if you are going to offer goods and services TO THE PUBLIC you can’t discriminate on a prohibited basis. Given that for years Catholics, Jews, Blacks, Hispanics, etc., have been discriminated against in public accommodations, it is an unsurprising law. Homosexual men and women have also faced discrimination. Does anybody really think it’s proper to refuse to serve homosexuals – say at a restaurant? grocery store? gas station? just because you disagree with their lifestyle? For generations lots of people have thought the mingling of whites and blacks is immoral. What of a cake for a mixed race couple? [Whooooooa Nellie! Apples and oranges. The redefinition of marriage into something against nature is not in the same category. Racial equality is a civil rights issue, not this.] Many have thought that was grossly immoral for years – against their religion. What of a mixed religions wedding?

    If you want to sell to, and serve, the public, you have to serve them all. Not hard. If you think that’s a Freedom of Religion issue, you are in for a terrible surprise. Trying to make it a FOR issue is a losing argument.

    And, yes, that does mean if St Mary’s Parish has a hall they routinely rent out to the public to make a few dollars, they will have to rent it out on a non-discriminatory basis. So, someone had better be thinking about that. None of this is new. [THAT’s where the real fight is going to be.]

    So, if you want to operate a bakery and bake cakes…do so. Don’t put people on the top. Someone wants a cake..sell them a cake. [That’s not a bad solution. They can decorate the cake anyway they want to… somewhere else… and you should have to help them do it.] But don’t proclaim you won’t bake a cake for a homosexual couple, or a black/white couple or a Catholic/Hindu couple etc., etc. Don’t ask why anyone wants the cake. Tell them you don’t care why they want the cake if they try to tell you. Otherwise, you can’t operate a bakery in Oregon. Like it or not, no one has a God-given right to operate a bakery. [C’mon. They must]

  29. St Donatus says:

    I think we need to support businesses that are truly Catholic in their identity. Catholics are terrible at this. We see fundamentalists with fish symbols on their signs and they get more business because of it. How many ‘real’ Catholic businesses do you personally use? What about the mechanic, the lumber yard, etc. Do you pay a little bit more to protect our ‘brother’ Catholics? I try to do this but even I don’t do it like I should. I know that the only privately owned lumber yard in town other than Home Depot and Lowes is owned by a Catholic. I shop there maybe one out of every ten times when I need lumber. It is more convenient for me to go to Lowes right down the street and pick up the stuff for the yard as well. Do we look at the back of the Sunday Bulletin and specifically try to use those vendors?

    I think I will go to the Catholic lumber yard on my way home tonight!

  30. Choirmaster says:

    The Fall of Numenor. ;-)

    Very apropos, if you ask me.

    Tolkien was insightful, if nothing else. The men of Numenor could be described as having complete hubris. Their technology and medicine is imagined to surpass by far anything existing IRL these days, their life-span was no less than three-fold our years, and in terms of wealth and military might, philosophy and science, there was no equal. Some critics entertain the notion that the Valar, even with their angelic commission, immortal royalty, and divine power would be defeated by the Numenorians.

    It was the Numenorians’ craving of “life unending within the circles of the world”, inflamed by the whisperings and lies of Sauron, that corrupted them and incited their rebellion. Such a desire was unnatural, as the Elves deemed it, and was planted and cultivated by Morgoth and Sauron for their discomfiture and eventual destruction. What unnatural cravings are finding official recognition and traction with the polities of our real world?

    The “Faithful”, who’s hearts were still with the Elves and the Valar, were persecuted, murdered, disappeared, and sacrificed as burnt offerings upon Sauron’s altar of fire in his temple at Armenelos. Are there not persons and institutions among us who are identified as traitors for their “faithfulness” and destroyed because of that and nothing else?

    The king even changed the official language of the kingdom, eschewing the traditional Valinorean tongue for the Numenorian vernacular, and outlawing and anathematizing the former’s usage. We’ve seen that, too. ;-)

    However, as usual, I have a small correction to the analogy of the Valar destroying Numenor: It was not the Valar, but God Himself, who destroyed Numenor by sinking the island into a chasm opened up in the middle of the Great Sea, and “bending” the world in on itself. At the moment the forces of Ar Pharazon set foot on the Undying Lands of the West, the Valar “laid down their guardianship” of the world and passed the buck to God for a good, old fashioned deus ex machina solution. [Right! I remember that now. Good catch.] True to character, God’s solution was final, irreversible, and more terrible than anyone would have imagined, including Sauron in his petty temple laughing at the lightening.

  31. lsclerkin says:

    Good one, Father.
    The Valar/Numenor simile.

    ..and with flaming swords.

    Go to confession, everyone.

  32. lsclerkin says:

    Yes, Choirmaster..
    The Valar for the first, and I think only time, stood aside and let Illuvatar (God) do it because it was his will. Things were that bad.

    I remember that.
    (Ok, so I’m a Tolkien geek. Have been since I was 15)

  33. TimG says:

    “None of this is new”

    This is so true. None of this is new. I will use words we have heard from the Big O (aka FGP) before….this is also a “Tired worn out old argument”.

    Words of Dismissal of any reasonable arguments without any good solid logic to back them up. By forcing people and businesses to do things against their faith, when will folks realize this is itself discrimination? The hypocrisy of this behavior never fails to dumbfound me.

  34. frjim4321 says:

    Really I don’t think a business should be permitted to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, no matter what their religious preference is. I don’t think we would permit a Jewish bakery that refused service to Islamic people.

    I am sad to hear that this bakery may have received some threatening comments. Unfortunately there are extreme elements of many different kind of interest groups, but gladly they are the minority. I am sure we would not approve of the execution of abortion providers, but we have seen that extreme at that end of the spectrum as well.

    I find no reason to sanction or otherwise justify a baker refusing to serve a lesbian couple. If they can’t do business in the public arena according to the laws that govern such commerce, they need to get out of the baking business.

    I don’t find this complex at all.

  35. Priam1184 says:

    @ocalatrad I agree 100% with your statement about homosexual activity being a necrosis. Homosexual activity, and I repeat that IT IS HOMOSEXUAL ACTIVITY THAT I AM SPEAKING OF NOT THE INCLINATION AND/OR TEMPTATION TO IT, is in and of itself a rejection of life. And the fact that it is becoming not only accepted but increasingly widespread and encouraged in our culture bespeaks a society on the verge of annihilation.

  36. Priam1184 says:

    @choirmaster You speak of Numenor and you ask ‘what unnatural cravings are finding official recognition and traction with the polities of our real world?’ I have an answer. Maybe once or twice a year I read a story somewhere in a magazine or on the internet about some scientist who is messing with the human genome and hypothesizing about ‘biological immortality’ I found these stories absurd when I first saw them, but I start to think now that somebody somewhere (most likely well funded and in the shadows) is working very hard toward this. Maybe this will be the temptation offered by the enemy at the end of the age, or maybe not I don’t know. But I find it terribly troubling.

  37. acardnal says:

    frjim, the bakery wasn’t discriminating against them because they were homosexual. They didn’t refuse to sell them donuts or croissants or a nice blueberry muffin. They refused to make a lesbian couple a wedding cake! A Christian cannot endorse homosexuals getting “married”; it would be analogous to endorsing what was happening in Sodom and Gomorrah.

  38. maryh says:

    @frjim
    They were not discriminating against anyone.
    They would have refused to bake a SSM wedding cake for a heterosexual couple. No, that isn’t far-fetched. It’s called having someone else pick up the cake.
    They should take this all the way to the Supreme Court if they can.
    The precedent being set is that you have to provide any legal service that is within your capability. So yes, this means when the KKK comes by for a cake for their clan meeting, the bakers have to provide that too.
    They DID NOT REFUSE service to the couple because of their sexual orientation. The refused a service they didn’t provide to ANYBODY.

  39. Vecchio di Londra says:

    Any business is entirely free to offer whatever services it wants to, to whomever it is prepared to business with.
    A Jewish bakery (like any other bakery) will happily serve muslims or anyone else in its shop with bagels and whatever other products it routinely bakes. If the customer were to demand a special custom-made islamic cake with arabic inscriptions from the Koran to be brought round to an Eid celebration of Hamas supporters, said bakery might well justifiably refuse. There is no law to compel it to make what it does not choose to make. (If it does make such products, then withholding them in a shop from any customer would be unfair, though not illegal – but that is not what happened here: it was about a manufacturing and catering commission.)
    The bakery never denied its services to anyone, but it refused to deliver a homosexual-themed cake to a ‘wedding’ in a state (Oregon) where ssm is illegal. Illegal.

  40. netokor says:

    “I don’t find this complex at all.” Fr Jim, that’s because you choose to condone evil, even at the expense of the eternal loss of souls.

    Deciding not to cater to those who flaunt their sin is very courageous and it might even help save the souls of these sexually disoriented persons who chose to destroy a decent business run by decent people.

  41. Palladio says:

    frjim4321, but the couple evidently felt that it could not, in conscience, sell the couple a cake. Legal, or illegal, moral or immoral, surely their action was punished out of all proportion to the alleged crime. So the Left Coast is so open and groovy it shuts down a business, excoriates its owners from public and political places, and terrorizes it, instead of fining, or communicating, or showing even a little kindness? This is political correctness unbound and lunatic and militant. Authorities typically find ways to defuse such situations.

  42. Choirmaster says:

    @frjim4321: I’m a bit of a libertarian, and as such disagree with you. If there is a Muslim-owned bakery in my town, and they hate Christians, or think that my presence in their store taints their goods and makes it haram, I would gladly avoid patronizing them.

    Indeed, more than just that, I would prefer to know up front that they hate me rather than have them coerced by the government to lie to me that everything is fine, and have them harboring hate in their hearts, and be tempted to spit in my cake. Or even worse, be driven out of town by the coercive government who will not allow them to run their own business in their own ways according to their own beliefs.

    @Marion Ancilla Mariae: I’ve also considered ways to get around the “public accommodation” problem, yet my idea would be to have a “Private Bakery Club”, membership by invitation only, and prospective customers would pay a $1.00 temporary membership fee. At this point your customers are not the public, but a private club, and as such you have no requirement of accommodation.

    It wouldn’t last long as they’d find a way to get you, but for a minute or two, you’d be getting around it.

  43. maryh says:

    @ocalatrad The increasing acceptance of homosexuals among Catholic parishes and the hierarchy in their statements and public gatherings, such as diocesan LGBT-outreach, are only affirming the homosexuals in their sodomy and degradation.
    First of all, we are required to accept homosexual persons. Take a look at your catechism.
    Secondly, outreach to homosexuals can be a good and necessary thing, if done correctly. See “Courage” [good] vs “Dignity”[bad].
    Thirdly, one of the worst things we can do is mix up the condition with the lifestyle. There are, in fact, homosexuals who live in complete obedience to the Church, and even DEFEND the Church publicly to others. They need to be supported, not thrown in with people who buy into or succumb to the culture.
    Fourthly, we have to BE THERE when individuals decide the lifestyle is destroying them. That means don’t talk like homosexual = sodomite. Or like the only unforgivable sin is sodomy. Okay?

  44. Vecchio di Londra says:

    “one of the worst things we can do is mix up the condition with the lifestyle. There are, in fact, homosexuals who live in complete obedience to the Church”
    maryh – I’m absolutely with you there. But I think ocalatrad was clearly talking about openly practising homosexuals who try to gain accreditation from the Church for their ‘lifestyle’ ie practice.

    As for ‘talk like…the only unforgivable sin is sodomy,’ no sin is of course unforgivable if confessed and truly repented for. But the sin of sodomy is one of the four ‘sins crying to heaven for vengeance’ emphatically denounced both in the Bible and in the Catholic Catechism. As one of the four most serious sins (just one down the list from murder) it doesn’t exactly get a free pass. And unless/until mortal sins are repented of and confessed, they remain unforgiven. An uncomfortable fact that the more strident Catholic LGB groups tend to gloss over or even ignore.

  45. Marion Ancilla Mariae says:

    Choirmaster, thanks so much for your kind message about my efforts to come up with ideas. We Christians are going to want to study how the Resistance in the Netherlands, France, Poland operated under the Nazi Regime during WWII . . . and also how Solidarity not only found ways to operate, but to thrive under Soviet oppression during the Cold War era. They were able to accomplish a great deal, and believe me, there were plenty of their fellow countrymen who were happy to betray them. So, they had to look ahead for the enemy and watch their backs from false friends! And plenty died. How did these folks find the courage and the wisdom to do all that they did under these circumstances? We have much to learn!

    Maryh, thanks for the reminder that there are homosexual persons who lead faithful, Christian lives. My best brother is one of them. (I call him “best” because he’s my favorite of all; it was my job to take care of him when he was a baby.) Some homosexual persons have come out of the “lifestyle,” and now are facing life without a life partner, and have had to face the fact that they may never have one. And also they may feel like a fish out of water in many Catholic parishes, to boot. Can you imagine how horrific? Please, please be as kind, as compassionate, as empathic, as welcoming as you can be toward homosexual persons who give at least some indication that they are willing to try. Please smile, shake his hand . . . you see, he could be my “baby brother”! Oh! Thank you!

  46. netokor says:

    In college I had a dear friend who was homosexual. I could speak candidly with him. One day he told me that he knew that he would go to hell, because of his lifestyle. I told him that we are all in danger of going there and that we all struggle against the devil, the flesh and the world. I have lost touch with him, but I never forget him nor his unique loneliness. I keep him in my prayers and ask you to do the same.

  47. Marion Ancilla Mariae says:

    One day he told me that he knew that he would go to hell, because of his lifestyle.

    God bless us and save us!

    I will pray for him, netokor, and especially for all persons facing same-sex attraction, that God would strengthen, comfort, and guide them.

  48. pvmkmyer says:

    The legal distinction is between discrimination in a “public accommodation” and one that is not public. If a homosexual came into the bakery to buy a dozen cookies that were on display and was told he/she couldn’t because they were homosexual, that would violate Oregon’s anti-discrimination law. That is not the case here. It was a private contract for additional services – baking a cake to be used at a private event. It is similar to an Oregon case in which a wholesaler who sold to the retail trade was not considered a “public accommodation”. If you ask 3 contractors to give you bids to remodel your bathroom, but one of them refuses to give you a bid, you have no right to force him to give you the bid and enter into the contract. This is a similar situation. It’s a shame the Thomas More Legal Center didn’t get involved in this, but then again, it sounds like they were forced to close from intimidation by the mob, not legal action.

    Kristalnacht indeed.

  49. Imrahil says:

    One day he told me that he knew that he would go to hell, because of his lifestyle.

    I wonder whether that was a somewhat blasphemous and certainly rude expression of his disbelief in the Faith (viz. along the lines of “according to your ethics, I’m going to Hell, which only proves that you are wrong”, and then add some terms of abuse).

    By my usual habit of assuming the best about people, I guess it was. The other alternative – that he really meant what he said – is too ghastly to contemplate.

    That said, either way, may the Lord bless him and help him out of the road he has objectively taken. May He, in addition, bring about his conversion not only in an unseen action on a deathbed or so, but in the fullness of his life and in the form of full and entire public reconciliation. Through Christ, Our Lord, Amen.

  50. Ella says:

    @Bea,
    The blindness of those who say the sin of Sodom was lack of hospitality is beyond laughable. Genesis 19 makes it very clear what the problem was and “lack of hospitality” was definitely not it. I guess the word sodomy has for all these years actually meant “inhospitable”.

  51. Kathleen10 says:

    Homofascists. Your rights and mine mean nothing to these people. They are like Nazi’s with glitter.
    Please see Defend the Family as well, and MassResistance. They are both doing a good job of highlighting for the public the lesser known connections, origins, and maneuvers of the homofascists on today’s scene. The movement is unfortunately larger, and more radical, than most people ever anticipated. Both of these websites are very informative if one is interested in the origins of the movement or how to fight it. Both websites are on the front line and are viciously attacked on all sides but somehow keep going. It’s also informative on how life really is in a state where homosexuality has been elevated to a much higher status than heterosexuality.

  52. benedetta says:

    An interview with the couple states that mafia tactics were used against them. Not a boycott. Not non violent resistance. Not letter writing or angry phone calls. Not the state investigation. We’re talking criminal acts. Which, really, because those criminal actions targeted a Christian-owned business by rights should be handled by the authorities as a hate crime.

  53. SKAY says:

    They are going to continue selling some products out of their private home according to the original article. I hope the Christians and others of good will in their hometown will support them The husband has already found another job to support the family. It is said that when one door closes another one opens and I hope that it will be an even bigger door for them.

    At some point will Christians not be able to preach Christianity because of some convoluted civil right issue? Someone is probably dreaming that up right now just to see what will happen in this upside down court culture that the left is busy creating with Eric Holder and his Justice Department’s help when needed. Islam will be just fine of course. Nothing to see there.
    I wonder if homosexuals have tried to buy wedding cakes specifically for a ssm ceremony at a bakery owned by Muslims?

  54. Arele says:

    As an Oregonian, I’ve been following this pretty closely. It’s absolutely outrageous!
    To answer Guiseppe’s question about how did the Attorney General get involved in this, the lesbian couple first filed a complaint with the Attorney General back in January, but it was dismissed.

    Then this summer, they filed another complaint with the Bureau of Labor and Industries. This is where the comment from Commissioner Brad Avakian came from where he said the goal was not to shut down a business, but to rehabilitate them. This made national news because the reason the couple said they refused to provide a wedding cake for a gay wedding was on religious grounds. So was Avakian going to “rehabilitate” them out of their religious beliefs?

    Also, to clarify again, the bakery owners did not refuse to serve them because they were gay. In fact, they had literally served them a year before, making and selling a wedding cake to one of them for their mother’s and stepfather’s wedding – a fact the lesbian couple admits. It is not denying service to them BECAUSE they are gay, but because they cannot in good conscience participate in services for a gay wedding (a wedding which is currently illegal in Oregon, btw).

    What ultimately shut this business down was militant harassment, including death threats, rape threats, and even a recent ransacking of their delivery truck. But the most devastating thing to the business proper was that the militant protests were beyond a boycott. They went after vendors and customers, threatening to shut them down as well if they did business with Sweet Cakes.

    Lastly, the mainstream media, the Oregonian and two of the three local television stations are not reporting the harassment and death threats, or militant tactics to them and their vendors. They are only reporting the complaint to the Labor Commissioner. So they make it sound like the owners just caved, almost like an admission of guilt on the part of the owners – which is far from true.

    The truth is the opposite – their business was literally killed by mafia-like tactics.

    Good thing I’m a Catholic and understand the grace of crucifixion!

  55. AA Cunningham says:

    “Really I don’t think a business should be permitted to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, no matter what their religious preference is. I don’t think we would permit a Jewish bakery that refused service to Islamic people.” frjim4321

    The bakery refused to condone behavior not orientation, just like the teaching of the Church as stated in the Catechism. I bet you disagree with that as well.

    You let us know when you come across Muslims shopping at Jewish bakeries. Every year around Passover stories are floated by Muslim “journalists” that Jews use the blood of dead babies in matzah.

    Egyptian Politician: Jews Use Human Blood for Passover Matzos

    Your logic, as usual, is fecal in nature.

  56. Scott W. says:

    You let us know when you come across Muslims shopping at Jewish bakeries.

    I actually think Jews ought to sell their wares to Muslims, but that’s not what’s going on here. As someone else pointed out, the bakery did not refuse to sell to homosexuals. Instead, the equivalent would be forcing the Jews to make a cake with “Death to Israel!” on it. I happen to think designing and baking ceremonial cakes is an artistic expression like photography. This incident is no different than forcing a painter to paint a portrait of a homosexual couple naked and engaged in an act of sodomy.

  57. ghp95134 says:

    frjim4321:”… I don’t think we would permit a Jewish bakery that refused service to Islamic people.…”

    Even if the customer wanted to order a cake that said “Death to Jews!”?
    If the Jewish baker refused, he could be sued? WHY? What about a neo-Nazi wanting a Deathshead, SS-Runes, and swastika from the Jewish baker? Are no “red lines” allowed to the shop owner?

    –Guy Power

  58. Gail F says:

    pvmkmyer: The important thing to remember (ONE of the important things to remember) is that “public accommodation” is being defined very broadly. Whereas once businesses such as restaurants, stores, bus companies, etc. were considered “public accommodations” because they were open to the general public, now all businesses that serve the public in any capacity are being considered “public accommodations.” Most of us would agree that there is a difference between a restaurant, which serves (or should serve) the same food in the same conditions to anyone who comes in the doors during its stated hours, and a business that makes a custom product to order (like a specialty baker) or a business that is hired to come to a function and perform a service (like a wedding photographer). But the legal trend is to treat all businesses as public accommodations.
    For this and other legal points, see my recent article on the New Mexico Supreme Court decision on the Elane Photography case, in which one of the justices notoriously said that “compromising” one’s beliefs is “the price of citizenship”:
    http://catholicexchange.com/is-betrayal-of-conscience-the-price-of-citizenship/

  59. tsearles102 says:

    Wow, Father, great reference to Tolkien lore (fall of Numenor). For those of us who are familiar with the story, the current stage of Western civilizaiton has so many connections and parallels to the fall of Numenor, it’s scary…

  60. jhayes says:

    The precedent being set is that you have to provide any legal service that is within your capability. So yes, this means when the KKK comes by for a cake for their clan meeting, the bakers have to provide that too.

    No, you could refuse to serve the KKK. They are not members of a “protected class” listed in the state anti-discrimination law. The state legislature did include “sexual orientation” as one of the protected classes under the Oregon anti-discrimination law.

    The bakery could probably adopt a policy that it only makes generic bakery products (here are our five standard cakes) and doesn’t make personalized cakes for anyone. They only get into trouble if they are willing to make a personalized cake for a heterosexual couple but not for a same sex couple.

  61. acardnal says:

    “Religion” is also a “protected class” but apparently this only applies to those who buy goods and services and not to those who sell goods and services. This needs to be corrected.

    No Christian should ever comply with immoral laws.

  62. RJHighland says:

    Fr. Jim,
    I am shocked at your comment. I would say a Christian owned company having to make a cake for a same sex couple because it is the law of the land is no different than when our Christian ancesters where forced by the government to sprinkle incense at the temples of the local pagan Gods to show loyalty to the Roman government. Many Christians sprinkled ashes and lived many did not and were killed and are saints in the Church. Those Christians that sprinkled the incense did not recieve that kind of praise and admiration. This couple were not willing to sprinkle incense for this false god and I truly admire them for that.

  63. MarkG says:

    With respect, these stories almost always end up being fabricated or exaggerated on BOTH SIDES, with both sides looking for a fight. Who benefits from these things: both sides of media and both political parties, as both use these types of things to either sell advertising or for scare letters to drum up donations.

    On the lesbian side, it seems strange that they would want to insist that a bakery bake a wedding cake? Most people shop around for something that important and want not just a good but excellent working relationship with the baker. Clearly they were targeting this bakery.

    On the bakery side, they refuse service to the LGBT community and then claim that the LGBT community was boycotting them and forced them out of business. By logic, these are two mutually exclusive claims. How can the LGBT community boycott them to the point of losing their business if they weren’t selling to the LGBT community to begin with?
    Shouldn’t the bakery be grateful that the LGBT community was boycotting them?

  64. maryh says:

    @MarkG How can the LGBT community boycott them to the point of losing their business if they weren’t selling to the LGBT community to begin with?
    First of all, because it wasn’t just a boycott (see other entries above).
    Secondly, because they were selling to the LGBT community. That’s the whole point. They weren’t discriminating against LGBT persons at all – such people were regular customers. The only thing they refused was to bake a cake celebrating what they considered an immoral event: a ssm.
    So now, if a baker refuses to bake a cake for a Black Panthers event, does that mean he’s racist? Even if he normally provides goods and services for blacks? That’s what we’re talking about here.

  65. cl00bie says:

    This just amazes me. I could see the conversation I’d have as a Catholic baker:

    Lesbian: “My partner and I would like to order a cake for our wedding”.
    Me: “I’d prefer not to do that.”
    Lesbian: “Why not?”
    Me: “Because my deeply held religious beliefs forbid me from materially cooperating with intrinsic evil”.
    Lesbian: “Then we’ll sue you.”
    Me: “Let me get this straight. You’ll sue me to force me to violate my deeply held beliefs? Okay, I will prepare the food that you and your guests will be eating (a kowing look deep into her eyes and a slight smile at the corner of my lips) when will the event be and when would you like to pick it up?

  66. Imrahil says:

    I second what the dear @tsearles102 wrote:

    Wow, Father, great reference to Tolkien lore (fall of Numenor).

    (Will the reverent dear @Fr Z forgive me to say that the Valar did not destroy Númenor? Apparently judging the matter over their paygrade, or being actually incapable to do so, they laid down the governance of the Earth and then God himself did.)

    Though, is the following really the case?
    For those of us who are familiar with the story, the current stage of Western civilizaiton has so many connections and parallels to the fall of Numenor, it’s scary…

    Ar-Pharazôn could muster an army strong enough to make the Dark Lord’s armies tremble with fear and desert, notwithstanding that the latter bore the Ring, and caused him to beg forgiveness and pardon. Sure, he had his ulterior motives, but all the same he did not like to be humbled. Elendil’s heirs, after all, cherished the column he had set up in Umbar, who once had been their king and kinsman. Are we, now, in a position to muster such an army?

    When he was under the evil influence of Sauron, he emerged a tyrant over all the mortal world. Sure, Númenor had already had a position of great influence, or outright domination among the later kings, and sure, he was cruel, unjust and a murderous idolater, but still… to be a tyrant you have to be a conqueror first, which is some sort of achievement. Are we, now, in a position to conquer the world?

    And still, when he set sail to break the Ban, it is written that his trumpets were louder than Heaven’s thunder. Are we, now, capable of doing manful and courageous deeds of a Nietzschean sort, even immoral ones?

    And before his untimely death, he actually saw the Undying Lands, and is awaiting the Last Battle where, according to all hints, he will finally reappear on the good side.

    If the parallel actually exists, it would be quite hopeful, given also that the Númenóreans still had escaping kinsmens who first partly saved mankind and then helped in the final victory. But does it?

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