A fictionalized note from a Christian baker:
To our dear and beloved customers,
Creator Cakes has served this community for over two decades. That we run our business in accordance with our Christian faith is well known in the community.
We've grown very concerned over the last week's events that saw businesses like ours unwantedly thrust into the national spotlight. We're one of the few handfuls of businesses that serve the wedding industry out of Christian conviction. Our letterhead even includes 1 Corinthians 1:31: “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” We do so because for over two decades, we've felt that this business platform gives us the best opportunity to minister to our community and to be an influence for Jesus Christ.
From providing free cakes to proms for handicapped students, to making sure that we pay our employees above the minimum wage, to using environmentally healthy products, we've striven to run our business to the glory of God and to the furtherance of His Kingdom. We believe that the spark of creativity that brings forth our culinary masterpieces originates from God's image in each of us.
We love our customers—all of them; gay or straight. In the span of our career, we've never turned away a customer for who he or she is. That is abhorrent. We have, however, turned away customers whose remarriages were performed under the pretense of adultery. We did not feel comfortable using our talents in service of a ceremony that would wrongly lend sacramental blessing to what the Bible labels sin.
Increasingly, we've seen people like us—Christian bakers, florists, and photographers—targeted, maligned, and harassed for choosing not to use our creative talents and speech in service of same-sex weddings. Where scenarios like this have arisen, it has been the business that has lost, despite the lies thrown out in the media that “religious liberty” results in a “license to discriminate.” Influential business elites, coupled with the media and gay rights activists have colluded to attack and undermine the rights of small business owners like us. They have portrayed our businesses as purveyors of invidious discrimination. These are all lies.
Though we've never been asked to service a same-sex wedding, and though it looks increasingly that we someday will, we want to notify our customers of a policy that Creator Cakes will pursue. We've decided that if asked, we will provide a cake at a same-sex wedding ceremony. But we will take every dollar from that sale and donate it to an organization fighting to protect and advance religious liberty—organizations like Alliance Defending Freedom, Manhattan Declaration, or the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.
No organization, company or person should be compelled to participate in events or speech that conflict with their convictions. This is a basic freedom we thought was afforded under our constitution. But our culture is beginning to turn its back on its rich legacy of protecting dissenting viewpoints. If Caesar insists that bakers must be made to bake cakes or else close up shop, we’re going to see to it that Caesar’s edicts get undermined by channeling resources designed to fight Caesar.
So, we will serve same-sex wedding services. We will do so unhappily and with a bothered conscience. But if we must do so with a bothered conscience, we reserve the right as a condition of the marketplace to bother others' consciences as well. If we are coerced into baking for events we disagree with, we will return the favor and use the funds of those we disagree with to fund the organizations they disagree with. If you are unhappy with this new policy or it conflicts with your own convictions about marriage, we invite you to take your business elsewhere.
Such is the cost of freedom.
Sincerely,
The Management
