It’s not just the hierarchy of rights that is being inverted. It’s also the scope of the various rights that are in conflict with each other: as the right to sexual liberty has expanded, the scope of religious liberty has correspondingly narrowed. 

After six years and hundreds of celebratory confections, it wasn’t the economy, the stiff competition, financing, or any of the other usual road bumps of building a new business that caused Sweet Cakes by Melissa—a husband-and-wife bakery in Portland, Oregon area—to close its doors at the end of the summer.

Instead, it was the nationwide battle over same-sex marriage.

In January, co-owner Aaron Klein had denied a request to bake a cake for a lesbian wedding. “The Bible tells us to flee from sin,” his wife and business namesake, Melissa Klein told a Fox News columnist recently. “I don’t think making a cake for it helps. Protests, boycotts, and a storm of media attention—much of it negative—ensued. The couple received death threats. Then, activists broadened the boycott: any wedding vendor that did business with Sweet Cakes would be targeted.

The final nail in the coffin came in August when the slighted lesbian couple filed an anti-discrimination suit with the state. “The LGBT attacks are the reason we are shutting down the shop. They have killed our business through mob tactics,” Klein said. His wife added: “I guess in my mind I thought we lived in a lot nicer of a world where everybody tolerated everybody.”

Christian Wedding Vendors Under Attack
In 2006, a noted advocate for traditional marriage, Maggie Gallagher, warned that the legalization of same-sex marriage would lead to constraints on religious freedom. Writing in the Weekly Standard, Gallagher saw the end of adoptions services by Boston Catholic Charities as a foreshadowing of things to come. (To retain its license, Gallagher explained, the agency would have to abide by the state’s anti-discrimination law, which had been extended to married same-sex couples.) She couched her warning in the form of a question:

This March, then, unexpectedly, a mere two years after the introduction of gay marriage in America, a number of latent concerns about the impact of this innovation on religious freedom ceased to be theoretical. How could Adam and Steve’s marriage possibly hurt anyone else? When religious-right leaders prophesy negative consequences from gay marriage, they are often seen as overwrought. The First Amendment, we are told, will protect religious groups from persecution for their views about marriage. So who is right? Is the fate of Catholic Charities of Boston an aberration or a sign of things to come?

Seven years later, we have the answer: as of this writing, there have been at least 11 instances of wedding vendors and venues facing some form of recrimination—threats, boycotts, protests, and the intervention of state or judicial authorities—because they denied services for gay nuptials because of their faith. Besides Sweet Cakes by Melissa, they are:

■ Masterpiece Cakeshop, Colorado: Owner Jack Phillips refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple in July. The Lakewood bakery has faced at least two protests, a Facebook-driven boycott, and a discrimination complaint from the state Attorney General that was scheduled for a hearing in September. Phillips has said he would rather close his bakeshop than compromise his Christian beliefs. (Sources: news reports including Washington Times and Huffington Post.)

■ Victoria’s Cake Cottage, Iowa: Baker Victoria Childress denied service to a lesbian couple hoping to get married in 2011. The Des Moines baker was called a “bigot” and faced a protest and Facebook boycott but refused to budge, citing her Christian faith. (Sources: news reports includingWashington Times and Huffington Post.)

■ Fleur Cakes, Oregon: Pam Regentin, the owner of the Mount Hood-area cake shop, refused to make a cake for a lesbian couple earlier this year, sparking another Facebook boycott in May. (Sources: news reports including local television.)

■ Liberty Ridge Farm, New York: The family-owned farm in mid-state New York is facing a human rights complaint after refusing to host a lesbian wedding in 2012. (Sources: local news sourceshere and here and the Huffington Post.)

■ All Occasion Party Place, Texas: In February, the Fort Worth-based wedding venue declined to host a wedding reception for a gay couple. An online boycott has now been launched against the business. (Sources: local news and the Huffington Post.)

■ Gortz Haus, Iowa: After refusing to host a gay wedding (reported in August), Betty Odgaard, the owner  of the business, received threatening calls and e-mails and now must contend with a complaint the couple has filed with the state civil rights commission. (Sources: local news sources here and hereand the Huffington Post.)

■ Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association, New Jersey: In 2012, a state judge ruled that a Methodist-owned events venue in Ocean Grove violated state law when it refused to host a gay wedding in 2007. Also, while the discrimination case was still pending, the facility lost its state tax exemption because it was deemed “no longer met the requirements as a place open to all members of the public,” the New York Times reported. (Sources: The New York Times here and here,Philadelphia Inquirer, and LifeSiteNews.)

■ Elane Photography, New Mexico: The state Supreme Court ruled in August that a New Mexico photography business owned by Elaine Huguenin and her husband Jon could not legally deny services to same-sex couples. The photographer had refused service for a lesbian commitment ceremony in 2006. One of the women had filed a complaint with the state Human Rights Commission, which ruled against the photographers in 2008, prompting an appeals process that led to the high court decision. It’s now unclear what will happen to the business. (Sources: press releases and news reports including the Catholic News Agency and the Santa Fe New Mexican. The case is discussed further below.)

■ Arlene’s Flowers, Washington: A florist refused to provide flowers to a gay wedding last March and now owner Baronelle Stutzman is facing a lawsuit from the state Attorney General. (Sources: news reports including local television and the Associated Press.)

■ Wildflower Inn, Vermont: A lesbian couple sued the Wildflower Inn under the state public accommodations law in 2011 after being told they could not have their wedding reception there. The owners were reportedly open to holding same-sex ceremonies as long as customers were notified that the events personally violated their Catholic faith. It wasn’t enough. The inn had to settle the case in 2012, paying a $10,000 fine and putting double that amount in a charitable trust. Also, the inn is no longer hosting weddings, although the decision reportedly was made before the settlement. (Sources:The New York Times and Huffington Post.)

These cases represent a new battlefield in the clash between the freedoms of Christians and the “radical homosexual agenda,” said Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of The Thomas Moore Law Center. “Despite their relatively small numbers, radical homosexuals wield enormous power. They dominate our cultural elite, Hollywood, television, the mainstream news media, public schools, academia, and a significant portion of the judiciary,” Thompson said in an e-mail interview. “As a result of their power, homosexual activists are able to intimidate and silence opposition.”

Such fundamental clashes are linked to the spreading legalization of same-sex marriage. Of the 11 total cases cited above, three occurred within two years of their state legalizing same-sex marriage. A fourth came four years afterwards. Four others were in states that did not have same-sex marriage but had granted some legal recognition to same-sex unions, such as domestic partnerships or civil unions. “When you start recognizing same-sex marriage, these cases are going to start coming up,” said Jim Campbell, an Alliance for Defense attorney involved in the New Mexico case.

The legalization of same-sex marriage has created new opportunities for Christian business owners to run afoul of longstanding anti-discrimination laws, according to Campbell. But same-sex marriage is not only creating the opportunity—it’s also affecting how those laws are interpreted, Campbell said.

Such laws ban discrimination on the basis of “sexual orientation,” an ambiguous term that could refer either to the sexual attraction and self-identification of individuals or their behavior, according to Peter Sprigg, Senior Fellow for Policy Studies at the Family Research Council. Christian conservatives, he says, draw a distinction between an individual and his behavior. “To disapprove of homosexual relationships … is something quite different from discrimination against an individual on the basis of sexual orientation,” he said.

The line between the dignity of a person and their behavior, however, is being blurred by the Left, according to Sprigg, enabling it to wield anti-discrimination laws against Christian conservatives who are, in fact, not discriminating against individuals. As Denver baker Jack Phillips to his local CBS affiliate, “If gays come in and want to order birthday cakes or any cakes for any occasion, graduations, or whatever, I have no prejudice against that whatsoever.”

Sexual Liberty Before Religious Liberty
In refusing to participate in gay weddings, Christian business owners have invoked their constitutional right to the free exercise of religion. As the Iowa wedding venue owner asked, “Can I have my beliefs without being ostracized for that?”

Across the country, judges are answering in the negative. In ruling against the Methodist-owned Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association, a state judge declared that the Constitution allows “some intrusion into religious freedom to balance other important societal goals.” In other words, religious liberty has been shoved aside to serve a higher priority—sexual liberty, Sprigg says.

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