Baker couple 'silenced' for refusing to bake cake for gay wedding

After the Christian owners of the bakery Sweet Cakes By Melissa refused to bake a cake for a gay wedding, the authorities slapped them with a fine and a cease and desist order.

The Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industry (BOLI) have ordered owners Aaron and Melissa Klein to pay 135,000 US dollars to a lesbian couple they turned away in 2013 as compensation, Fox News reported.

In addition to this, the state also banned the bakers from speaking publicly about their refusal to participate in or bake wedding cakes for same-sex nuptials.

Mrs. Klein wrote on Facebook that the order stripped them off of all their First Amendment rights, as now they neither had freedom of religion or freedom of speech.

The couple was ordered to "cease and desist from publishing, circulating, issuing or displaying, or causing to be published, circulated, issued or displayed, any communication, notice, advertisement or sign of any kind to the effect that any of the accommodations, advantages, facilities, services or privileges of a place of public accommodation will be refused, withheld from or denied to, or that any discrimination will be made against, any person on account of sexual orientation," by Brad Avakian, the commissioner of the BOLI and a vocal supporter of the LGBTQIA community.

However, not worrying about Avakian's order to remain silent, the Kleins said that they refuse to comply and as far as their constitutional freedoms have been violated by the state, they would speak out.

The Kleins and their five children have been targeted by the LGBTQIA activists and their supporters since 2013, and had to shut down their retail store and install security at their rural home after they were hit with boycotts, protests and even death threats.

The family has launched a donation page to help defray the expenses of their fight with the state of Oregon.

Meanwhile, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy tried to reassure Americans that religious liberty would be protected now that the Court redefined marriage.