Arts & Entertainment
Oregon bakery that refused lesbian customers shuts down
right-wing media strikes back
(Photo by Bigstock.)
Sweet Cakes by Melissa, the Oregon bakery that refused to make a cake for a same-sex wedding in 2013, announced its closure on Facebook on Thursday.
Co-owners Aaron and Melissa Klein would not bake a cake for lesbian couple Laurel and Rachel Bowman-Cryer “because that goes against their Christian faith,” the Oregonian reported. In April 2015 the Kleins were ordered to pay the couple $135,000 in damages. The money is being held by the state while the Kleins appeal.
In 2013 the bakers closed the brick-and-mortar store location and began operating out of their home. Gay Star News reports the home operation had been closed for a few months but has now made an official announcement.
Huffington Post reports the right-wing media is outraged by the closure.
The Strident Conservative writes the blame is on “Gay Mafia thugs working on behalf of the LGBT radicals” who are “armed to the hilt, and stand ready to advance their pro-LGBT, anti-Christian, anti-American agenda.”
The Gospel Herald called the bakery’s closure “persecution” and conservative columnist Todd Starnes blames the company’s shutdown on a “homofascist mob” and “left-wing bigots and bullies.”
The Oregonian reports Oregon Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian says the case was simply about following Oregon law.
“Within Oregon’s public accommodations law is the basic principle of human decency that every person, regardless of their sexual orientation, has the freedom to fully participate in society. The ability to enter public places, to shop, to dine, to move about unfettered by bigotry,” Avakian says.
Baltimore
This John Waters interview has been edited for readability — but perhaps not human decency
Pope of Trash dishes on Trump, plane etiquette, last meal, and more
By WESLEY CASE | At 80 years old, John Waters is still the ideal dinner guest — incisively sharp, quick-witted and funny as hell.
The chic Baltimore native proved it again and again in a recent Zoom interview, calling from his summer home in Provincetown, Mass.
The occasion was the Blu-ray releases of two of his movies — the 1977 dark comedy “Desperate Living” and his enduring 1988 musical “Hairspray” — on June 23 by the Criterion Collection, which publishes restorations of films it deems culturally important. The Criterion stamp of approval has become the gold standard among cinephiles.
“It’s like getting an award,” said Waters, who wrote and directed both films.
The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
The Washington Blade held the seventh annual Pride on the Pier at The Wharf DC on Saturday, June 13.
(Washington Blade photos by Landon Shackelford)
The 2026 Lost River Pride Festival was held on the scenic grounds of the Lost River Farmers Market in Lost City, W.Va. on Saturday, June 13. Headliner Tom Goss performed at the festival and gave a second performance at the nearby Guesthouse Lost River.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
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