A gay couple is suing a printing company that sent them anti-gay messages in their pamphlets instead of the gay wedding programs they paid them for.
The couple, who are currently residing in Australia, got married in Pennsylvania this past September.
At that time, they were horrified to find that the package that was supposed to contain information like the order of events, members of the wedding party, and lyrics to the Above & Beyond song Treasure actually contained “hateful, discriminatory and anti-gay messages” as the lawsuit explains.
One of those messages read, “Satan knows our flesh is weak. He preys upon our weaknesses to tempt us to sin. Satan can only influence us to want to sin. He cannot make us sin.”
Even worse, they received those messages just a day before their wedding.
31-year-old Heasley and 39-year-old Borg hope that their lawsuit, which was filed this Tuesday (Jan 16), will spread the message that “there will be consequences for acts of hate.”
“At first we thought it was simply a mistake, and we had accidentally received someone else’s order,” the pair wrote in an email to Yahoo! Lifestyle. “But once we saw the images and actually read a bit of the pamphlet, we quickly realized this wasn’t a simple or innocent error."
They added: “Both of our initial reactions were ones of shock … utter shock. The wording and imagery was aggressive, threatening, and deeply personally offensive. This was by far the most direct, personal, and aggressive act of homophobia either of us has experienced to date.”
Meanwhile, Vistaprint’s officials are saying they're currently conducting an internal investigation into the incident.
Sara Nash, a spokesperson for Vistapoint, also spoke to Yahoo and said:
“Vistaprint would never discriminate against customers for their sexual orientation. We pride ourselves on being a company that celebrates diversity and enables customers all over the world to customize products for their special events. We have just been made aware of this incident in the last few hours. We understand how upsetting it would be for anyone to receive materials such as these the night before their wedding and we have immediately launched an internal investigation. Until we have had the opportunity to complete our investigation, we cannot comment further.”
