The Gresham bakers who made national headlines after refusing to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding have closed shop, according to a Facebook page for the business.



"We have closed Sweet Cakes," Aaron and Melissa Klein wrote online. "We appreciate everyone's continued prayer and support."



The Kleins became the face of the burgeoning "religious liberty" movement in 2013. That January, Rachel Bowman-Cryer and her mother visited their Sweet Cakes by Melissa bakery planning to buy a wedding cake. Bowman-Cryer had purchased a cake previously from the Kleins for her mother's sixth wedding. Bowman-Cryer wanted to have the same two-layer "raspberry fantasy cake" she had purchased for her mother.



"What are the names of the bride and groom?" Aaron Klein asked.



"It's two brides," Bowman-Cryer said.



'I think we may have wasted your time," Aaron Klein told Bowman-Cryer. "We don't do same-sex weddings."



Bowman-Cryer and her wife Laurel Bowman-Cryer eventually filed a complaint with the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries.





The Kleins closed their Gresham shop in 2013 but continued to sell cakes from their home.



"We lost our business," Melissa Klein said in a video made by their lawyers this year. "You work so hard to build something up, and something you've poured your heart into and was your passion, to lose that has been devastating for me. "



In 2015, Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian ordered the Kleins to pay $135,000 in damages to the lesbian couple. The Kleins paid the damages last year, but the Bowman-Cryers have yet to receive the award. The money will remain in a government escrow account until the end of appeals.



Sweet Cakes supporters raised more than half a million dollars for the bakers. The Kleins, backed by the former White House counsel for George H.W. Bush, filed an appeal in April. Oral arguments are expected later this year.



This spring, they began selling online an array of cakes shipped in mason jars. One of the first flavors they debuted was the raspberry fantasy cake.



Melissa Klein wrote in February that she hoped to open a brick-and-mortar shop again someday.



"I would never be able to in Oregon, though," she wrote. "If we were to open our shop again where should it be?"

-- Casey Parks

503-221-8271

cparks@oregonian.com; @caseyparks