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Melissa Klein, co-owner of Sweet Cakes by Melissa in Gresham, with a customer earlier this year. The bakery now operates solely on-line.

(Everton Bailey Jr./The Oregonian)

UPDATED AT 5:49 p.m.

Critics of gay marriage in Oregon on Thursday announced that they have filed a proposed ballot measure that would allow businesses to refuse to serve gay weddings or similar ceremonies if it violated their religious beliefs.



The initiative comes after Oregon Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian launched a well-publicized investigation against a Gresham bakery that refused to provide a cake for a marriage between two women.

"We are deeply concerned that even Oregon elected officials are becoming hostile towards religious freedom," said Teresa Harke, spokeswoman for Friends of Religious Freedom, a group formed to support the initiative campaign.

Harke is also communications director for the Oregon Family Council, a group opposing the proposed initiative that would legalize same-sex marriage in the state.

Jeana Frazzini, executive director of Basic Rights Oregon, the state's major gay-rights organization, said in a statement that "while we are all entitled to our religious beliefs, those beliefs don't entitle any of us to discriminate against others, or disobey laws that are already in place to ensure that everyone is treated equally."

Rachel Cryer and Laurel Bowman of Portland filed a complaint with the labor commissioner in August against Sweet Cakes by Melissa charging that the bakery violated a 2007 state law prohibiting businesses from discriminating against customers on the basis of their sexual orientation.

Bakery owners Aaron and Melissa Klein have said they serve customers regardless of their sexual orientation but do not want to provide services for same-sex weddings because of their religious beliefs.

The complaint against the bakery is still being investigated. Charlie Burr, a spokesman for Avakian, said the labor commissioner is a strong supporter of the 2007 law but that his agency approaches each case without any bias toward either side.

Harke said that the initiative was sparked in part by the Gresham bakery case. But she said a number of wedding photographers, caterers, innkeepers and others have had concerns about similar cases around the country.

She said that people with deep-seated religious beliefs against same-sex weddings or other commitment ceremonies should not have to participate. "Would you expect a Jewish bakery to serve a neo-Nazi who wanted a cake with a swastika on it?" she said, noting that existing law would not require service in that case.

Harke and Shawn Lindsay, a former state representative who is serving as legal counsel for the initiative campaign, both criticized Avakian for saying that his goal was not to shut down businesses that violate the law but to "rehabilitate" them.

It is very troubling that Oregon elected officials believe people of faith or with conscientious objections need to be 'rehabilitated,'" Harke said in a press release announcing the initiative drive.

Burr, Avakian's spokesman, said that the commissioner was referring to his efforts to help businesses navigate the equal rights law so that they did not get into legal trouble.

Sponsors still need to go through several steps before they can begin gathering the 87,213 signatures needed to qualify for the November, 2014 ballot.

The initiative specifically allows people outside of government to refuse to provide business services to same-sex weddings or their arrangements or to functions marking same-sex civil unions or same-sex domestic partnerships.

Harke said the measure broadens the religious exemption only for same-sex ceremonies because "this is the one area where we're having the most issue with."

-- Jeff Mapes