Two Fronts in the Culture War

Please see this article, courtesy of Patrick Deneen:

A crowdfunding campaign that had raised more than $109,000 for the Christian-owned bakery Sweet Cakes by Melissa in Oregon was removed Saturday after complaints from gay-rights advocates.

The Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries proposed a damages award Friday of $135,000 against Aaron and Melissa Klein, owners of the [Sweet Cakes] bakery, after they were found in violation of the state’s anti-discrimination law in February.

“Lisa Watson of Cupcake Jones started her own campaign to contact GoFundMe and report the campaign as being in violation of their terms of service,” said the website GoLocalPDX in a Saturday post.

Sweet Cakes by Melissa has since closed its doors, although the Kleins are still providing baked goods from their home. The Kleins, who have five children, have said they are now struggling to make ends meet.

See here for a new donation site for the Kleins.

Also:

http://honeybadgerbrigade.com/2015/04/25/hbb-seeking-legal-advice/

The Honey Badger Brigade is now seeking legal advice to hold the Calgary Expo staff accountable for their acts of abuse and discrimination against us. We have made attempts in the past week to diffuse the situation by attempting to contact Mr. Kelly Dowd, president of the Calgary Expo. We have received no response.

On April 17th 2015, the Honey Badger Brigade was forcibly evicted and our booth ordered removed, despite our operating well within the rules of the Expo and its policies of conduct. We were not given a chance to dispute the alleged complaints. The organization violated its own stated policy in the process and has released conflicting claims regarding its reasons for our removal.

Those claims indicate that we were removed due to our Men’s Rights Activism and unpopular view of modern feminism. Therefore it is our belief that the actions taken by the Calgary Expo staff were of a political nature and contravene the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, in particular freedom of conscience, freedom of thought and freedom of association.

If so, this eviction was based in discrimination, an act that has defamed and abused us. While we would prefer to settle this outside of a courtroom, we are prepared to take every legal action needed to ensure that ourselves and other future exhibitors will be treated equally, and without such a denial of their fundamental human rights.

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In preparation for potential legal action we have started a legal fund. However, we do not yet have a funding goal as we are not yet able to assess the expense until we have more information. Anyone wishing to help us in our fight against discrimination and censorship can donate to it here:

http://www.feedthebadger.com/projects/honey-badger-brigade-legal-fund/