It wasn’t refusing to bake a wedding cake that earned Sweet Cakes By Melissa a $135,000 fine, it was the fact that the Christian bakers published the personal information of the lesbian couple requesting the cake, thus inviting fellow anti-gay Christians to attack and threaten the couple and their foster children.

While many Christians claim outrage about the fine, few know or are willing to admit the real reason for the hefty fine, and the despicable actions of Christian bakers Aaron and Melissa Klein that reigned terror upon the lesbian couple and their foster children.

What is widely known is that the anti-gay Christian bakers discriminated against the same-sex couple by denying them full and equal access to a place of public accommodation, which is against the law in Oregon, and presumably anywhere else in the U.S. that includes sexual orientation as a protected class.

What is not widely known, is that after the lesbian couple filed their original complaint, the Christian bakers published the lesbian couple’s personal information on social media, with terrifying and heart-breaking consequences.

After the publication of their personal information, the couple received death threats from many “concerned Christians,” threats that terrorized the couple and nearly caused them to lose custody of their foster children.

In its final order issued last week, the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries found the Kleins liable for the threats made by others against the couple and awarded them to pay “$60,000 in damages to Laurel Bowman-Cryer and $75,000 in damages to Rachel Bowman-Cryer for emotional suffering.”

Sweet Cakes By Melissa closed its doors in 2013, after intense notoriety and public backlash accompanying the anti-gay discrimination investigation. The public controversy surrounding the bakery’s anti-gay stance proved to be disastrous for business. Many simply refused to do business with Sweet Cakes by Melissa after it became public knowledge that the bakery was openly discriminating against same-sex couples.

However, when conservative Christians are trying to portray Aaron and Melissa Klein as heroes or martyrs, remember that in reality the Christian bakers are not only bigots who refused to make a wedding cake, but they are also cowards and bullies that published the personal information of a same-sex couple, setting them up to be terrorized by anti-gay conservative Christians.

(H/T Love, Joy, Feminism)