Oregon bakers were NOT fined for refusing to bake cake

[OkToBeTakei]

Somehow the response you got does not surprise me.

Reading it might have given her the 'gay' .... We can't let that happen. There's no vaccine!

[urban teacher]

Plus the comments on the Washington Post are even crazier than hers if you can believe it. Maybe that's what vaccines do, take out the crazy.

[Maxwell]

The Raw Story article now has this correction at the bottom:

Correction: An earlier version of this article contained a significant error that resulted from failure to distinguish the difference between the agency’s recommendation and the commissioner’s final ruling. The bakers were not, as previously reported, punished for threats by others against the couple, as the agency had recommended. They were ordered by the commissioner to pay damages to the couple for emotional harm caused by their unlawful discrimination. We regret the error, and we would like to thank Eugene Volokh for clarifying the distinction.

[carebaer]

So the order does say "The Commissioner concludes that complainants’ emotional harm related to the denial of service continued throughout the period of media attention and that the facts related solely to emotional harm resulting from media attention do not adequately support an award of damages. No further analysis regarding the media attention as a causative factor is, therefore, necessary."

I didn't read the nearly 80 pages of "Finding of Fact--Procedural" but in the 43 pages of summary and opinion before the signed order, there is nothing to indicate that the commissioner agreed with the complainants assertion that the media attention was a significant cause of their emotional distress and there is the above quoted statement that "the facts related solely to emotional harm resulting from media attention do not adequately support an award of damages."

The respondents were found to have violated ORS 659A.403 which refers to the actual denial of service and ORS 659A.409 which refers publishing a communication that they would refuse service to a specific class (based on interviews and a sign they hung announcing their store closure).

If one of you read it and found that the commissioner awarded damages based on the facebook posts or media exposure, please let me know what page you found that on because that didn't seem to be the case summary/opinion/order part.

[onlyme]

wweek.com/portland/article-20698-the_cake_wars.html

They agreed to bake a divorce cake, a baby out of wedlock cake, a stem cell cloning research cake, and a pagan solstice cake. (The non-kosher bar b que is just stupid. Christians don't follow kosher laws, except the Adventists.)

[Trynn]

Adventists do not follow all the kosher laws, just some of them. It's been a while since I ate meat though so my memory is fuzzy.

[Snarkylark]

wweek.com/portland/article-20698-the_cake_wars.html

They agreed to bake a divorce cake, a baby out of wedlock cake, a stem cell cloning research cake, and a pagan solstice cake. (The non-kosher bar b que is just stupid. Christians don't follow kosher laws, except the Adventists.)

OOPS! See, that's the thing with these people. Hypocrites, if you ask me. Divorce is talked about much more and how God HATES it in the Bible. I can't believe they'd make a Cake for a coven with a pentagram on it, tho, given their beliefs! Smh

[doggie]

after gofundme kicked the out the door they went to a christian version a seminarian gofundme and have over 300,000 bucks

[church_of_dog]

OOPS! See, that's the thing with these people. Hypocrites, if you ask me. Divorce is talked about much more and how God HATES it in the Bible. I can't believe they'd make a Cake for a coven with a pentagram on it, tho, given their beliefs! Smh

Re the bolded -- that's just the point, though -- they're not really making choices based on their religious beliefs -- if they were then they would have refused all of these. The whole point of the exercise, as I understood it, was to show that those who are refusing to make the same-sex marriage cakes are instead discriminating, pure and simple. This is a personal and cultural bigotry, that is presented hiding behind religious mandates, but this experiment suggests that the religious angle is simply a ruse and the true motivation is just pure bigotry.

And of course, bigotry can't be legislated against, but expressing it via discrimination in the marketplace sure can be.

[DGayle]

Also, had they set up their bakery as an LLC, they wouldn't be facing losing their home (aka their 'personal assets') to cover the fines they received for their 'revenge' after having the complaint filed against them. I have absolutely no sympathy for someone who goes into business without knowing (or following) their state's laws or taking care to cover their asses in case of an issue like this.

*those more well-versed in law and who have self-owned businesses, please correct me if I'm wrong on the LLC aspect.

An LLC doesn't shield people from their actions. An LLC would protect them if, say, somebody got sick and died from a wrongly made cake, like it was promised peanut free, and accidental cross contamination happened. But if you go off and post something intentionally meant to harm, you don't get to point to your LLC filing as a shield against the law.

[Snarkylark]

Re the bolded -- that's just the point, though -- they're not really making choices based on their religious beliefs -- if they were then they would have refused all of these. The whole point of the exercise, as I understood it, was to show that those who are refusing to make the same-sex marriage cakes are instead discriminating, pure and simple. This is a personal and cultural bigotry, that is presented hiding behind religious mandates, but this experiment suggests that the religious angle is simply a ruse and the true motivation is just pure bigotry.

And of course, bigotry can't be legislated against, but expressing it via discrimination in the marketplace sure can be.

Right!