As a crowdfunding site, GoFundMe is a platform for a wide variety of causes to reach out to potential supporters and raise money. And yet, a few recent moves by the company seem to be unnecessarily strong-arming its corporate position into the fundraising marketplace, a position that doesn’t seem to have much respect for traditional values.
Sweet Cakes by Melissa, the Oregon bakery whose owners (Aaron and Melissa Klein) refused to make a wedding cake for a lesbian couple, was ordered by a judge to pay $135,000 in emotional damages to the couple in question. With the hateful backlash that the bakery received from gay marriage advocates after refusing to bake the cake, the owners turned to the community to help support their family during this financially and emotionally trying time.
A GoFundMe account to help support the Kleins was set up, and the support started pouring in. Then, less than 24 hours later, GoFundMe shut down the account without warning. The organization claims the campaign was in violation of GoFundMe’s terms and conditions, an assertion the Kleins have decried as patently false.
Barronelle Stutzman, owner and operator of Arlene’s Flowers, is another Christian entrepreneur who found herself on the wrong side of liberal “tolerance” and was similarly reviled by gay marriage allies for refusing to create bouquets for a homosexual customer’s ceremony. Saddled with fees and feeling the business pressure of the left’s persecution, she similarly sought financial assistance from the community. Her GoFundMe account had reportedly reached six figures before the crowdfunding site shut down her page as well.
Meanwhile, “Mary,” a pseudonymous practicing member of the Satanic Temple, has an active GoFundMe account to support her efforts to circumvent Missouri’s laws requiring a 72-hour waiting period for abortions. Citing religious liberty in an effort to terminate her unborn child’s life as soon as possible, she is receiving help from Lucien Greaves, head of the Satanic Temple, as well as from the GoFundMe account, which remains active despite the controversy surrounding her efforts.
It’s curious that an ostensibly free marketplace of crowdfunding ideas would cut off support for individuals standing up for their religious beliefs and free-speech beliefs in the face of vicious attacks on their business by proponents of gay marriage, while allowing unfettered another account to continue helping facilitate a speedy abortion.
Curiouser still is the fact that the Christian-owned businesses were snared in anti-discrimination suits that somehow forgot about two key first-amendment protections, yet the crowdfunding site they turned to for financial assistance in their time of need is, seemingly, discriminating against them.
What do you think? Have religious liberty and free speech protections become discriminatory against Christians in the face of militant political correctness? Sound off.
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