Have you ever seen a $135,000 wedding cake? Chances are, unless you’re Kim Kardashian or Kanye West, it’s not going to be on your bucket list.
For a lesbian couple in Portland, on July 2 they received final ruling that they would be receiving $135,000 from Sweet Cakes bakery for emotional damages, after the bakery refused to make the couple’s wedding cake in 2013.
While the ruling was initially handed down in April of this year, the owners of the now closed, Sweet Cakes bakery, Aaron and Melissa Klein, have actively sought legal options, including appealing to another court, to avoid the payment of damages.
From the Bureau of Labor and Industries:
This case is not about a wedding cake or a marriage. It is about a business’s refusal to serve someone because of their sexual orientation. Under Oregon law, that is illegal,” BOLI said in its final ruling. “Within Oregon’s public accommodations law is the basic principle of human decency that every person, regardless of their sexual orientation, has the freedom to fully participate in society. The ability to enter public places, to shop, to dine, to move about unfettered by bigotry.
The couple, Rachel and Laurel Bowman-Cryer, were each awarded separate amounts: Rachel $75,000 in damages and Laurel $60,000 in damages, bringing the total of owed damages to $135,000.
Pretty sure I saw this in an episode of NBC’s “The Good Wife,” earlier this year. Discrimination comes with a hefty price tag. Just serve people their cake and get on with it. Who the hell cares where the cake ends up, all money is green! If you’re not in the business of serving all kinds of people, maybe you should find another career. I hear the zoo is hiring!
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