Oregon Christian Bakers Break Website Record, Fundraise $352K While Facing Fine for Refusing Wedding Cake

The Christian couple fined $135,000 for refusing to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding have reportedly fundraised over $352,000 on a crowdfunding site, breaking records for that website's most fundraised campaigns.

Melissa and Aaron Klein, owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa, have reportedly raised over $352,000 in the past two months on the website Continue to Give after their previous crowdfunding campaign on GoFundMe was shut down.

Jesse Wellhoefer, founder of Continue to Give, told The Washington Times in a recent interview that the couple's fundraising page has raised more for individuals than any other campaign in the website's three year history.

Last month, the Kleins were fined $135,000 by Oregon's Bureau of Labor and Industries for allegedly inflicting emotional and mental suffering on lesbian couple Rachel and Laurel Bowman-Cryer after the Kleins refused to bake them a wedding cake in 2013.

Brad Avakian, commissioner of Oregon's Bureau of Labor and Industries, wrote in a statement that "to allow respondents, a for-profit business, to deny any services to people because of their protected class, would be tantamount to allowing legal separation of people based on their sexual orientation from at least some portion of the public marketplace."

The Kleins have said that they will fight the ruling, with Aaron Klein telling The Blaze that the recent ruling shows "the persecution of Christians in this country."

"I will use every legal remedy I have to make sure that this man cannot do this to me, cannot do it to my wife, cannot do it to my five children, cannot do it to any other American," he said. "I will not relent. I will continue."