GRESHAM, Ore. — For several weeks, the phone rang off the hook at Sweet Cakes by Melissa in Gresham, Ore.

Aaron and Melissa Klein, the bakery shop’s owners, received countless angry phone calls from people who were livid that the Kleins had refused to bake a wedding cake for a lesbian couple in January 2013.

The Kleins’ home address was posted on the Internet. Aaron Klein said callers told him he deserved to die and that they would go to his house to kill him. Other wedding caterers that had referred customers to Sweet Cakes were also harassed and warned to stop doing business with the Kleins.

“It’s a very offensive thing to stand for God’s definition of marriage,” said Aaron Klein, 36, a devout evangelical Christian, who had to close the lucrative family business and take a job driving a garbage truck.

His wife of 17 years, Melissa, 34, beset by anxiety over the family’s finances, used to break down in tears whenever she read the angry emails.

“I would be so hurt by it,” said Melissa, who told the Register that her Christian faith and trust in God have deepened since the same-sex couple, Rachel and Laurel Bowman-Cryer, filed their complaint against Sweet Cakes in 2013.

“We have felt the Lord’s presence throughout all this like we have never felt it in our lives,” Aaron said.

The Kleins’ bakery is one of several Christian-owned businesses in recent years across the country that have been named in anti-discrimination lawsuits for refusing to offer services for same-sex weddings on religious grounds. The merchants have been fined thousands of dollars and been subjected to intense media scrutiny.

On July 2, the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries finalized a ruling against the Kleins that orders them to pay $135,000 in damages to the same-sex couple. The Kleins and their attorney also said the state has ordered them to “cease and desist” from making public statements about their resistance to making cakes for same-sex weddings.

Aaron Klein told the Register that he and Melissa, who are represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian legal organization, will appeal the order.

“As an American citizen, you just don’t surrender your constitutional rights because you go into business,” Aaron said.

 

Punished, but Still Open

In Colorado, Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, was ordered last year by the state’s Civil Rights Commission to educate himself and his staff on Colorado’s anti-discrimination law and to file quarterly compliance reports for two years. Phillips, a nondenominational Christian, is challenging the commission’s ruling in court. For now, he has stopped baking wedding cakes altogether.

“The government that is supposed to be protecting my rights has become the greatest threat to them,” Phillips said. “Right now, they’re coming after my ability to make a living according to my conscience, my religious views and my Christian faith.”

The question of whether Christian business owners can legally refuse to offer services to same-sex weddings could be the next conflict regarding homosexual rights, anti-discrimination statutes and religious liberty that the U.S. Supreme Court may decide.

“I think the Supreme Court will have to weigh in on this national embarrassment: that various state and local governments are forcing small business owners to act against and speak against their deepest convictions,” said Nicolle Martin, an attorney representing Phillips.

Martin, who is working with Alliance Defending Freedom, told the Register she believes the high court will side with merchants like Phillips because the court will see that “government can’t force citizens to surrender free speech and freedom of religion just to run a family business.” She said Phillips, in his 22 years of business, has never discriminated against anyone.

“Simply, like any artist, he chooses which art, which messages he will create,” Martin said. “A wedding cake is fundamentally and qualitatively different than a box of cookies. It’s an iconic symbol of marriage; and because it’s a symbol of marriage, the government can’t force someone to create it.”

Martin, who added that Phillips doesn’t make cakes with bigoted or anti-American expressions, also said, “At his core, he’s an artist, and that buttercream is his canvas.”

 

Chief Justice: ‘Serious Questions About Religious Liberty’

The clash regarding anti-discrimination lawsuits and same-sex marriage has gained particular significance for Catholics and others who believe in a biblical understanding of marriage in the wake of the Supreme Court’s June 26 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges that legalized same-sex civil marriage nationally. Chief Justice John Roberts, writing in dissent, warned that the ruling “creates serious questions about religious liberty” and that the majority’s stance toward people who oppose the redefinition of marriage “will have an effect, in society and in court.”

In addition to the broader societal and legal impacts of civil same-sex marriage, there are profound personal and professional ramifications for the shop owner or merchant who cites sincerely held religious beliefs when declining to bake a wedding cake or photograph a same-sex wedding.

Aaron and Melissa Klein said they tried to hold on to their bakery despite weeks of constant harassing phone calls and emails. Other merchants that had referred their customers to Sweet Cakes stopped doing so in response to angry messages. Many customers also canceled their orders for wedding cakes, which made the most money for the shop.

In September 2013, Aaron and Melissa Klein closed Sweet Cakes for good. The couple’s five children — ranging in age from 3 to 16 — would no longer have their own special room in the shop to play. There would be no family business for Aaron and Melissa to pass on to their children.

Melissa Klein, who had started baking cakes at home before she and Aaron opened their shop in 2009, grew emotional as she recalled the day she closed Sweet Cakes’ door for the last time.

“Walking out of there was so hard,” she said. “You spend so much time and effort. You basically put your whole heart and soul into building this thing up, and then it’s gone with the snap of a finger. It really impacts you.”

 

Trusting in God

Melissa said she worried as the family’s income was slashed by more than half when Aaron returned to driving a garbage truck. The family began having financial difficulties. One day, Melissa said she broke down crying in the kitchen because several bills were due at the same time, and money was short.

Aaron tried to comfort Melissa and went for a walk. As Melissa was praying, Aaron returned home after checking the mail and showed Melissa a check for $1,000 that someone the couple didn’t even know had sent them.

“That took care of everything we needed to take care of over the next couple of days,” said Melissa, who felt herself beginning to trust in God’s providence.

Said Melissa, “I just remember thinking, ‘Okay, God, you are there. You are taking care of us, and I need to stop worrying. I just need to completely give my trust to you.’ On that day, I just did. I continued to put my trust in him, and it’s been completely wonderful since then.”

Melissa said she and Aaron committed themselves to tithing and that they have been able to pay their bills with God’s help. As time passed, her outlook toward the angry phone calls and emails also changed.

“Through this, God has really strengthened me, so that now when I get those emails, my heart actually goes out to these people,” Melissa said. “When I get those emails, I take it as an opportunity to pray for them. I don’t get hurt anymore, because I know these people are lost and don’t understand our faith.”

 

Loving Witness

Melissa also said she does not harbor any anger, hatred or resentment toward Rachel and Laurel Bowman-Cryer, the same-sex couple who filed the complaint against Sweet Cakes. Despite sitting through a deposition with them and hearing what she described as lies, Melissa said her heart still went out to the couple, and she asked her attorney if she could speak with them after the deposition.

After receiving permission, Melissa said she approached Laurel Bowman-Cryer and hugged her.

“I wanted her to know that I didn’t hate her, that I don’t have any anger towards her and that I hope she can understand that what happened was not done out of hate or anger. That’s not what it was about. It was about our faith,” said Melissa, who added that Bowman-Cryer hugged her back, but her partner did not want to talk.

“I don’t hate them,” Melissa said. “It may sound weird to say, but I love them. I think that’s something God has given me.”

In Colorado, Phillips, who is still running Masterpiece Cakeshop, said other local businesses and residents have supported his position. Phillips also said he is not mad at the same-sex male couple who filed a complaint against his business in 2012.

“They have a right to make that complaint, the same as I have to follow my conscience and my faith in Jesus Christ and not participate in their wedding,” Phillips said. “These are two gentlemen who are created by God, are loved by him, and it’s my duty and my pleasure to follow my Lord’s example and love them also.”

Register correspondent Brian Fraga writes from Fall River, Massachusetts.