In God's World What Goes Around Comes Around

Hung Out to Dry

We have spoken from time to time of the persecution of Christians in the West.  Aaron and Melissa Klein of Oregon in the United States served as a notorious example.  Remember, this was the faithful Christian couple who refused to bake a celebratory cake for homosexual "nuptials".  One Brad Avakian, a petty potentate, lowered the boom upon the couple and forced them out of business.

Commissioner of the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries Brad Avakian gained infamy when he fined a Christian bakery with $135,000 for refusing to bake a wedding cake for a lesbian couple. The owners of the bakery, Aaron and Melissa Klein, turned down baking a cake to a lesbian couple as it would violate their Christian beliefs. Avakian claimed that the Klein’s refusal to bake the cake were not protected under the 1st Amendment, and labeled it illegal discrimination.

The Klein’s were forced to shut down their bakery, and now operate solely online. Melissa Klein has stated that she would like to reopen an actual store one day, but that doing so in Oregon would be next to impossible.  [The Blaze]

Petty potentate Avakian is an ambitious chappie.
 Not content with ruining the lives of the innocent, he had ambition to move on to greater things.  Here was a degenerate for whom the end justified the means: abuse of power was always to be justified by achievement of his radical, revolutionary goals.  Avakian aspired to become Secretary of State for Oregon.

His campaign claimed that he would use his office to come down hard on corporations with audits, use his governmental powers to protect the environment, and police workplace pay.  None of these things being what a secretary of state does.

Avakian claimed that even though the office has never done these things before, it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be tried. So it was that Avakian ran as a big government candidate for the secretary of state position in the very blue state of Oregon.   And Avakian lost. Handily.

It seems that the public had had enough of the tyrannical overreach of power.  Although a very liberal state, it seems as though Oregonians had had enough of the tender mercies of petty potentate Avakian.

What’s more, Avakian lost to a Republican, former state representative Dennis Richardson. Aside from being a Republican beating a Democrat out of office in Oregon, Richardson will be the first Republican voted into statewide office in 14 years. He won, despite being a noted social conservative who would audit public spending. Despite his positions, Richardson said that he would be a completely nonpartisan entity as a secretary of state.

This was enough to win him favor with Oregonians, and even got him endorsements by some Oregon publications that would normally reject a Republican like Richardson whole hog. Progressive outlet Willamette Week gave Richardson their nod over Avakian, saying that they couldn’t trust the Democrat due to too many factors that made him untrustworthy.

May the faithful persecuted Kleins get to open a new bakery one day and may Avakian get reduced even further to the role of sidewalk sweeper outside their bakery.  No doubt the Kleins will generously offer him some baked delights without charge.  That's the sort of folk they are.

The Kleins are a salutary example of how Christians are to be patient when persecutors rail against them.