Awful Customer Cancels Cake Order After Finding Out Bakery Owner Is Muslim

Wow

A bakery owner in Grand Rapids, Michigan says she lost a potential customer over her religious beliefs. According to Fox 17, Sweetcakez owner Zeinab Mohamed says the woman canceled her cake order after she found out Mohamed and her husband are Muslim.

Mohamed says the customer notified her via Facebook message of her decision, writing:

Hey actually were going to order our cake somewhere else my husband just found out your [sic] Muslim. And I'm not against it but he is because he was in Iraq fighting for our country against your people. He even changed his new doctor because the new one he was referred to was Muslim and he just said somethings and said he doesnt feel comfortable having you make our cake. I'm so sorry

In fact, Mohamed's husband is also a war veteran who fought in Iraq. And there are more than 1.5 billion Muslims in the world, making up nearly one-quarter of the world's people — which seems like an awfully large segment of the population to discriminate against.

Mohamed has chosen not to reveal the name of the potential customer; knowing the backlash they'd likely face, she tells Fox 17 "she doesn't want the cycle to continue."

Sweetcakez's Facebook page has been flooded with messages of support from both customers and strangers; one writes, "How terribly hurtful and needless. Selfish, too, as that person had no idea of your journey in life, your dreams, or your incredible veteran husband."

A bakery seems like a strange place for people's prejudices to come out, but unfortunately it seems to happen with some frequency: Earlier this year in Texas, a bakery refused to provide a cake for a same-sex wedding. A similar 2015 incident in Denver led to proposed state legislation that would have protected businesses' right to discriminate against customers, though the measures failed to pass. Meanwhile, states like Indiana and Mississippi have put laws in place that ensure discrimination against customers for religious and/or "moral" reasons is protected. Of course, a potential customer needs no legal protection in order to use religious discrimination to decide which businesses to patronize — but it's still terribly sad.

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