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On 2 January 2018, satire site The Last Line of Defense published a hoax article appearing to report that two Christian bakers in Oregon had a stunning reversal in fortune — according to the claim, the couple had won a $3 million lottery payout shortly after being fined for declining to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding: The only smidgen of truth in this story is that a bakery in Oregon called Sweet Cakes by Melissa was indeed fined after they declined to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding. However, this fake news article incorrectly identified the owners of the shop, misreported the amount that they were fined, and completely fabricated the story about them winning the lottery. The Christian owners of this bakery are actually named Aaron and Melissa Klein, not Melissa and Ben Morgan, and they were fined $135,000, not $165,000. The Last Line of Defense bills itself as a satire web site, and carries a disclaimer labeling all of its content as fiction. This web site has a long history of publishing misinformation. We reached out to the real Melissa Klein to find out if there was any truth to the story; she promptly e-mailed us: We also double-checked the Oregon State Lottery page and found no record of an Aaron or Melissa Klein winning a $3 million lottery in January 2018. Though the site only lists its winners by first name, no one named Melissa or Aaron won that sum, according to the site's search. A few days before this hoax article was published, Oregon Live reported that an appellate court had upheld the penalty against Melissa and Aaron Klein:
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