‘They Threatened to Burn Down Our Bakery’
EDITOR’S NOTE: Social media is once again cracking down on conservative content. Be sure to click here to avoid the censorship and get my free breaking news alerts delivered to you inbox.
A family-owned Minnesota bakery has been hit with vile threats — including calls for the owners to die and a threat that their business would burn down — after choosing to celebrate “Nuclear Family Month” during June instead of Gay Pride Month.
Joshua Streblow, owner of Carl’s Bakery in Granite Falls, told national radio host Todd Starnes that the controversy began when his family decided to publicly affirm what they believe is God’s design for the family. Watch the entire interview below:
“What caused all this controversy is God actually declaring something to be good and the world having a big problem with it,” Streblow said on “The Todd Starnes Show.” “And our choice to simply highlight that goodness and celebrate that goodness does what it always does when light hits darkness, it causes an awful lot of conflict.”
Carl’s Bakery launched a month-long promotion honoring what it called the nuclear family. Valley News Live reported the bakery said it wanted to focus on “what we believe both nature’s law and nature’s God reveal as the primary building block for any great society: the nuclear family.”
Streblow and his wife have nine children and they also run a small livestock farm where they sell eggs and meats to community members.
Streblow told Starnes the bakery defines the nuclear family as “one man, one woman, covenanted in marriage and receiving children into their home gladly.” He said the specials included free coffee for married couples, a discount for parents who bring in their children, and free doughnuts for those who bring in their parents.
The Christian Post reported that Streblow, a husband and father of nine, said the promotion was meant to celebrate “the beauty of God’s design and the beauty of God’s declared word.”
But the backlash came fast.
“Kind of slaps you in the face,” Streblow said, adding that the family expected some criticism but not the scope of the outrage. “As soon as it moves broadly and outward in the social media sphere, it gets shared all over and that’s when it starts to get pretty nasty, pretty vile.”
Starnes asked Streblow to describe the threats.
“A lot of profanity-laced messages and phone calls,” Streblow said. “The first few days we were like, our phone was just being endlessly called. We were trying to just block numbers. I mean it was just like non-stop phone calls from individuals, you know, wishing that we would be murdered like their gay friends were murdered or that our business would just burn down or that we would just die.”
Streblow said the family had to shut down its Google and Facebook review pages because they were being flooded with what he called “mountains of slander.”
Critics accused the bakery of being exclusionary. The Minnesota Star Tribune reported that Melissa Peterson, a local arts volunteer, called the promotion “very grifty” and said it could make some people feel ostracized.
Streblow, however, said his family is not backing down.
“Oh, absolutely,” he said when asked if the bakery would continue the celebration. “We serve a sovereign God. This war has already won, but we’re just fighting skirmishes.”
Streblow said the support from Christians across the country has been overwhelming.
“I had a couple of dozen phone call messages,” he said. “Honestly, I was just in tears listening to, from all over the country. And it is very, very heartening.”
Click here to post an encouraging message on the bakery’s Facebook page.