The case of the Gresham bakers who made national headlines after refusing to bake a cake for a lesbian couple's wedding landed before the Oregon Court of Appeals on Thursday.



The bakers, Aaron and Melissa Klein, argue that Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian and the Bureau of Labor and Industries violated state and federal laws by forcing them to pay damages to the couple.



The legal team behind Sweet Cakes by Melissa also said the state violated the Kleins' rights as artists to free speech, their rights as Oregonians to religious freedom and their rights as defendants to a due process. They argue the damages amount was excessive and that Avakian, who praised an LGBTQ advocacy group on Facebook the year before the hearing, should have recused himself.



In their appeal, the Kleins are seeking a religious exemption to the 2007 Oregon Equality Act, which protects Oregonians from discrimination. The case is among several that drew national attention after private businesses cited religious reasons for refusing to serve same-sex couples. The Washington State Supreme Court last month ruled against a florist who refused to sell flowers for a same-sex wedding.



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The controversy began four years ago when Rachel Bowman-Cryer and her mother visited the bakery to test cakes for Bowman-Cryer's wedding. Bowman-Cryer had purchased a cake from Sweet Cakes by Melissa before, but this time, Aaron Klein turned her away. Klein said his company didn't bake cakes for same-sex weddings.



She and her wife, Laurel Bowman-Cryer, filed complaints with Oregon's Bureau of Labor and Industries. An administrative judge ruled the Kleins had violated an Oregon law that bans discrimination against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in jobs and in places that serve the public. Avakian ordered them to pay the Bowman-Cryers $135,000 in damages.

Melissa and Aaron Klein had their day in court. The Oregon bakers, who were fined $135,000 for refusing to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding in 2013, made their case before the Oregon Court of Appeals this Thursday, March 2. They are holding a press conference immediately after the hearing. Posted by The Oregonian on Thursday, March 2, 2017

Thursday's proceedings were the first in a court not run by the Bureau of Labor and Industries. In his arguments, the Kleins' lawyer said the bakers should be protected by their religious beliefs.



"The law cannot compel an architect to design a church," said Adam Gustafson, a lawyer with the law firm of C. Boyden Gray, the former White House counsel for George H.W. Bush. "It cannot compel a rabbi to marry a Christian and a Jew. To do otherwise would offend the conscience and the constitution. The bureau's order must be vacated for the same reasons. It compels protected speech ... and it burdens religious exercise."



The appeals judges -- Rebecca Duncan, Joel DeVore and Chris Garrett -- posed several hypothetical questions. How is this case different from refusing to serve interracial couples, DeVore asked. Would it be OK if a gas station owner refused to serve a woman because his religion says women shouldn't drive, Duncan asked.



"Race is different from sexual orientation," Gustafson said. "The reason for these anti-miscegenation laws was the preservation of white supremacy. The opposition to interracial marriage was a proxy for racial bias. That's not true in this case. Opposition to interracial marriage was over slavery. We fought a war over it. That is not true over same-sex marriage."



The Kleins' lawyers argued, as the bakers did in the administrative hearing, that Melissa Klein's cakes were works of art and thus protected by the First Amendment. The free speech amendment protects artists from compelled speech.

The judges pressed for more details on the protocol for determining what is art.



"If I go through the cafeteria sandwich line," Duncan said, "And the person making it thinks it's art ..."



"I"m not aware of any real-life sandwich shops like that," Gustafson said.



Gustafson argued throughout the 45-minute proceeding that the United States Supreme Court had found that Christians have a "decent and honorable" premise for believing same-sex marriage is wrong. The judges' hypothetical acts of discrimination had not been ruled "decent and honorable," he said.



The state's case, argued by Assistant Attorney General Carson Whitehead, came down to two facts: The Kleins were willing to bake wedding cakes. They weren't willing to bake one for the Bowman-Cryers because theirs was a same-sex wedding. That, Whitehead said, violates Oregon law.



Discriminating against someone because of their sexuality is "enormously harmful," Whitehead said. "It goes to the very sense of self."



Judge Garrett noted that when the incident happened, same-sex marriage was not legal in Oregon.



"What if they made cakes for only legally sanctioned weddings?" he asked.



"That seems a gloss on the law," Whitehead said.



The judges will issue a decision later, though they did not specify a timetable.



Both couples held hands through the proceedings. The Bowman-Cryers left crying, and Melissa Klein teared up during a press conference afterward.



"For me, the hardest part has been losing my shop," Klein said. "Losing my dream of my family business, hearing my daughter saying she feels like a part of her childhood is gone. The shop was such a special place for her. It was our home away from home. I so badly would like that back."



Donors from across the country have contributed more than half a million dollars to the bakers, but Aaron Klein said that money all went to legal fees. They closed the brick-and-mortar shop in 2013 and an online store last year. Until a recent shoulder injury, he drove a garbage truck to cover the family's bills. Melissa Klein homeschools their children. She no longer bakes.



Though the Kleins paid the $135,000, it remains locked in escrow pending appeals. The Bowman-Cryers have not received it and instead scrape by on money Rachel Bowman-Cryer earns cleaning homes. For years, they struggled to find a landlord willing to rent to them or employers willing to hire them because the controversy brought too much attention.



Thursday, Laurel Bowman-Cryer said those were sacrifices she was willing to make.



"If we prevent this from happening to another couple, it feels worth it," Laurel Bowman-Cryer said. "I don't want a future where we have signs in the window saying, 'you're gay, you're not allowed.'"



The Bowman-Cryers said the proceedings felt dehumanizing at times. The Kleins' lawyer called Rachel Bowman-Cryer "Rebecca" during his rebuttal.



"Having this lawyer stand there and not even be able to remember my name, to know they've spent hours and hours looking over documents, and I'm still not a person," Rachel Bowman-Cryer said. "I'm just a name that starts with R."



When the Bowman-Cryers left the courthouse, they found the Kleins speaking to news crews on the front lawn.



"Man's court is going to do what man's court is going to do," Aaron Klein said. "The honest truth here is we just seek to serve the Lord. We want to do right by him."



The Bowman-Cryers' friends urged them to walk away.They didn't.

"We wanted to show we're human," Laurel Bowman Cryer said. "I'm more than just the lesbian. I'm a human, just like everyone else in there."



-- Casey Parks

503-221-8271

cparks@oregonian.com; @caseyparks