Imagine if a hotel posted a sign in their window stating “No Jews Allowed”. Picture what would occur if a restaurant refused to serve African Americans or if a business refused to hire anyone of Hispanic descent. The NAACP, LULAC and the media would be outraged. There would be boycotts, marches, pickets and every politician up for re-election would grandstand in front of every TV camera they could find.
Here in Houston The Garden Guy, a local landscaping firm refuses to work for homosexuals. A gay couple, most impressed by their “before and after” pictures contacted the firm to request a quote. In the context of the conversation, the client referred to his “partner”. Five minutes after hanging up the phone, he found the following e-mail in his in-box “
From: Garden Guy IncDate: October 18, 2006 9:08:36 AM CDT
To: Mjlord@emailaddress.com
Subject: Cancel Appt -Garden Guy
Dear Mr. Lord,
I am appreciative of your time on the phone today and glad youcontacted us. I need to tell you that we cannot meet with you becausewe choose not to work for homosexuals.
Best of luck in finding someone else to fill your landscaping needs.
All my best,SabrinaTodd and Sabrina Farber
Owners,
Garden Guy, Inc.
visit us at: www.garden-guy.com
The story is getting press here in Houston. Sabrina opted to send an e-mail, rather than make a phone call so her message is also galloping loose in cyberspace and making the rounds of the biosphere.
Mr. Lord hired another firm and the Garden Guys are refusing all requests for interviews.
They did issue a statement saying that as a small business they had the right to pick and choose their clients.
I wonder, since they so firmly believe in the sanctity of marriage if they also refuse to landscape the yards of couples who can marry but choose not to, people who have a divorce or two in their past or couples who married in a temple?
9 comments:
That is pretty crazy. But since we're living in a country where a pharmacist's right to 'choose' not to prescribe emergency contraception can trump a woman's right to 'choose' to use it, not that surprising. It's all about the free market, baby.
This is unbelieveable. Wow! How sad.
And Texas continues to be a shining example of conservatives run amok . . .
Unbelievably crass.
Less than 50 years ago, many a hotel was "restricted," i.e., refused to accept Jews as guests. To this day there are country clubs that won't admit Jews. The hotels have mostly gone out of business. The country clubs are still thriving.
Brown v. Board of Ed didn't hit the Supreme Court until 1954. It is not so hard to imagine the discrimination, any of it.
It is frightening to realize how slow our country is to evolve -- that women have had the legal capacity to vote for fewer than 100 years is startling to most of us, who take voting rights for granted.
I just visited the Garden Guy website. I noticed the biblical verses on the site as well as the link to the no gay marriage campaign. I am curious if this was on the website BEFORE this discriminatory situation occurred?
Once again, this is a terribly disturbing and sad story.
That is awful. I hope something can be done about it. In the meantime, I have sent an e-mail to the web site's contact address.
Here in Orlando an anti-discrimination ordinance was passed several years ago to prevent discrimination against gays in housing, employment, etc. I was surprised when it went through because there was considerable opposition from the religious right.
I truly hope something can be done about this in Houston as well. It is just a real shame that they are able to get away with such behavior openly.
The sad thing is, that it may in fact help their business- catering to bigots all over the Houston area. I hope it has the opposite effect.
Bastards.
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