Tony Perkins, president of the
Christian conservative Family Research Council (FRC), weighed in this
week on an Oregon baker's fight not to serve gay and lesbian couples.
An administrative law judge earlier
this week found that Aaron and Melissa Klein, who own Sweet Cakes by
Melissa, unlawfully discriminated against a lesbian couple when they
refused to make a cake for their commitment ceremony in 2013.
Aaron Klein claimed that to serve the
couple would violate his religious beliefs.
The state has recommended the Kleins
play $75,000 in damages per person.
(Related: Oregon
bakery Sweet Cakes by Melissa found guilty of discriminating against
lesbian couple.)
Perkins condemned the judge's ruling on
his Washington Watch radio program, saying that conservatives
should challenge LGBT-inclusive nondiscrimination laws by using “the
courts to push back and just overload the state.”
“I think we're getting close to the
point if they move to continue to force Christians to engage in
behavior that violates their moral conscience and convictions –
it's almost like involuntary servitude,” Perkins
told his radio listeners. “Maybe we're coming to the point of
civil disobedience, of saying, 'no, we won’t go.' They're going to
push and there will come a point [where] there will be pushback.”