Keisha Russell Keisha Russell is counsel to First Liberty Institute, a non-profit law firm dedicated to defending religious freedom for all. Did Oregon officials violate their duty to remain neutral on matters of religion when they ordered Christian bakers Aaron and Melissa Klein to pay $135,000 for declining to create a custom same-sex wedding cake, a move that crushed the small, family-owned business? That’s the question that the Oregon Court of Appeals will answer after having heard oral argument last week in the case of Melissa Klein v. Bureau of Labor and Industries. Oregon courts are taking up the case once again, after being ordered to do so by the U.S. Supreme Court. In June 2019, the Supreme Court threw out the original Oregon decision that upheld the crushing fine with orders to revisit the case in light of the Supreme Court’s earlier decision in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. That decision held that government officials should not be in the business of deciding whose faith is or is not acceptable. Instead, they must remain neutral on matters of religion. In court last week, the Kleins’ attorneys argued that the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries, led […]
