The Oregon Court of Appeals heard oral arguments on Thursday in a case you may recognize, Klein v. Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries. I originally reported on this case in 2018, when Aaron and Melissa Klein asked the Supreme Court to hear the lawsuit that caused them to lose their business and incur a wrongful, hefty fine based on their religion.
In June of 2019, the Supreme Court granted the Kleins’ petition, although they declined to hear the case. Instead, they vacated the decision of the Oregon Court of Appeals and sent the case back to it to hear again with the court’s decision in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission in mind. Masterpiece, of course, won national attention for the dispute it entailed between a Christian baker who refused to bake a cake for a gay wedding in accordance with his religious beliefs.
The Kleins’ case presents a compelling sequel to Masterpiece if ever there was one.
For years, the Kleins owned and operated Sweet Cakes by Melissa, a family bakery in Oregon. In 2013, many years before the court heard Masterpiece, a potential customer asked Aaron and Melissa Klein to make a custom cake for her same-sex wedding. Citing their traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs, Aaron and Melissa Klein declined to do it, even though custom cakes were their specialty. The same-sex couple sued for discrimination a year later. But there’s more.
In 2015, the state of Oregon took issue with the Kleins’ decision, and the Bureau of Labor and Industries fined them $135,000 for violating a public accommodations statute. The Kleins even had to endure a gag order for a period of time, although that was eventually lifted. The lengths the state went to to ensure the Kleins had to violate their conscience epitomize government animus toward religion.
“Government officials should not have the legal authority to force Christian-owned businesses to close if the business declines to participate in a same-sex wedding or event,” Keisha Russell, the counsel with First Liberty Institute, told me in an email. First Liberty represents the Kleins in court.
The Supreme Court asked the Oregon Court of Appeals to hear the case again in light of the Masterpiece ruling. In the Kleins’ appeal to the Supreme Court, they asked the court to hear their case because it “squarely presents the Constitutional questions this court could not resolve in Masterpiece.” That is to say, if the government acted wrongly in Masterpiece, the Kleins believe Oregon was even more egregious in violating their First Amendment rights because their case is even more clear.
It will be interesting to see how the Oregon court ultimately rules. It’s unfortunate that the Kleins are still facing litigation seven years later.
Business owners should be free to live in accordance with their conscience and operate their businesses in alignment with their religious beliefs without fear of lawsuits, fines, gag orders, and years of expensive, time-consuming litigation. There may be a fine line between discrimination and bigotry, but, in this case, the state of Oregon is showing its own bigotry against Christians.
Nicole Russell (@russell_nm) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. She is a journalist who previously worked in Republican politics in Minnesota.
