A couple in Pennsylvania ordered wedding programs, which arrived the day before their ceremony. Instead of the programs, which they’d paid nearly $80 for, they got a box full of pamphlets.
The couple is suing, and their lawsuit says that the pamphlets were filled with “hateful, discriminatory and anti-gay messages equating their relationship to Satan’s temptation.”
They’d ordered their programs from Vistaprint, which is an online company. It appears that someone within the company switched out the order, though reports identify that person only as a “John Doe.”
The lawsuit says that the literature was a clear attack on their relationship. It also made them buy new programs. This created an additional cost and forced them to do it immediately before the ceremony to be ready in time.
The company has put out a response, claiming it knew nothing of the switch when it happened. The response says that the company values diversity and is doing an internal investigation, presumably to find out who switched the documents.
The lawsuit may be for far more than the $80 that was lost, but damages are unspecified. The couple says they want to send a message, both to that company and to others, that such acts will carry consequences.
Roughly a month prior to this lawsuit, the U.S. Supreme Court saw a similar case when a baker wouldn’t make a wedding cake for a same-sex marriage.
Cases like this can set precedents in U.S. law and they often gain a lot of attention, especially when they get all the way to the Supreme Court, so it’s very important for those involved to understand all of their legal options.
Source: New York Post, “Printing company sent gay couple Satan pamphlets for wedding: suit,” Julia Marsh, Jan. 16, 2018
