When a same-sex couple, regular customers of Sweetcakes by Melissa, ordered a wedding cake, Melissa and Aaron Klein politely refused; the same-sex couple filed discrimination charges with the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries.

This same-sex couple says that being in the public eye was a terrible ordeal and brought nasty social media comments and even death threats. (Shame on those who cannot speak except with hatred and threats!) They also testified that being refused a wedding cake caused them intense emotional distress, sleepless nights, and weight gain. I do not doubt them.

Melissa and her husband and their five children also experienced serious harm and distress as a result of the discrimination claim brought against them. Due to adverse publicity and pressure from the LGBT community, they had to shut down their business as corporations and local business refused to work with them. They were called bigots and haters, then received death threats and physical attacks on their bakery van — parked in front of their home on a peaceful rural street. Somebody was clearly sending a message: we know where you live.

Gofundme.com took down their fundraising site (a practical and emotional punch). Melissa and her family lost a thriving business, although Melissa has recouped and now bakes cupcakes from her home.

What counts as a harm and who has the right to inflict it? The case of Melissa of Sweetcakes exposes the deep fissures in Justice Anthony Kennedy’s emerging theory of “dignitarian harm” and its consequences, the theory that led him to conceive that the Constitution requires all 50 states to recognize same sex unions as marriages, lest these couples feel demeaned and disrespected.

Both the same-sex couple and Melissa and Aaron Klein have experienced dignitarian or emotional harms out of the deep moral divide in America over gay marriage; but Melissa and her husband are the only ones face the dignitarian and practical harm of being punished by the government of Oregon.

Judge Brad Avakian, an elected official, demeans and disrespects Melissa without a pang of conscience. In ordering the couple to pay $135,000 in damages for “emotional and mental suffering,” this representative of the Law of Oregon said: “Within Oregon’s public accommodations law is the basic principle of human decency that every person, regardless of their sexual orientation, has the freedom to fully participate in society. … The ability to enter public places, to shop, to dine, to move about unfettered by bigotry.”

These are grand words to describe how much it hurts to discover your baker won’t bake your wedding cake. Yes, I understand — it would sting me too — but it’s a big country with diverse views. Surely the reasonable thing is just to stop patronizing that store, and take your business elsewhere.

That’s freedom. That respecting the equal dignity of people with whom you disagree. That’s Classical Liberalism. But that’s not the America the Left is now socially constructing, using the power of the state.

I said, in casual conversation this morning, imagining it to be hyperbole, “We don’t punish rapists this severely.” But if one looks at statutory rapists, that turns out to be largely true. A recent Rhode Island study of men who seduce young teenage girls found most avoided any jail time at all. And I don’t think they are being fined $100,000.

The state is also seeking the Klein’s personal property — not just their business assets — meaning their house, their savings, their cars, and their pension savings are all on the line. The redefinition of traditional Christianity as irrational bigotry is and will cause immense dignitary (as well as practical) harms to people who witness acts of the state like this, but it is invisible to the people inflicting these harms. Their morality requires a human sacrifice, and if it means killing Melissa’s livelihood and even taking their family home — well, it is a small price to pay to satisfy the great god of Equality. To add injury to injury and insult, Oregon has slapped the Kleins with a cease and desist order, warning them not to communicate in any forum that they will not serve gay married couples. Hans von Spakovsky and Katrina Trinko called this edict a “gag order.”

“He wants to silence anyone who opposes his point of view,” Aaron Klein told The Blaze, speaking specifically about Oregon Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian. “Unfortunately, he’s doing this with the wrong Christian, because I fight back.”

The case will be appealed. In the meantime, the Kleins have set up a new crowdfunding site.

Their mission statement? “Every American should be free to live and work according to their faith without the government punishing them for doing so.” Amen to that.