Christian Baker Who Refused Lesbian Couple Says It's Her Right to Live by Religious Convictions
An Iowan Christian baker claims to have chosen faith over profit when she refused to bake a wedding cake for a lesbian couple this fall.
Baker Victoria Childress of Des Moines claims she politely refused to bake a wedding cake for a couple after finding out they were lesbians.
"I didn't do the cake because of my convictions for their lifestyle," Childress told KCCI News.
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After the refusal, the couple, Trina Vodraska and Janelle Sievers, released a statement calling Childress a "bigot" and said that the experience was "degrading."
Childress countered the statement by saying, "I didn't do the cake because of my convictions for their lifestyle. It is my right as a business owner. It is my right, and it's not to discriminate against them," Childress told KCCI 8 Des Moines.
"It's not so much to do with them, as it’s to do with me, and my walk with God and what I will answer Him for," she added.
Gay activist groups are now boycotting Childress's bakery.
Although some people are against her decision, others support her for holding true to her beliefs.
"It doesn't have anything to do with them – it was about my convictions," she stressed. "They can get their cake anywhere," she told Fox News.
Although Childress has been called "homophobic," she continues to stand by her faith in light of public scrutiny.
"People are telling me they were proud of me for standing up for my beliefs because not many people do that these days. Business people are afraid to because they're afraid to lose money," she said.
"Sometimes the right decision isn't easy to recognize. That's why incorporating Jesus' examples into the business building process makes so much sense and will always yield the right results. I think we can all agree that Jesus' method of building His ministry was successful," Karen Wolff wrote in a review of Christian business book, Doing Business With John by E.L. Parker.
