A British gay couple has tied the knot and signified their love. But, they didn’t do so without some public pushback.
When Ashley Jenkins and Callum Hodge decided to get married in the Somerset village of Norton Malreward, they didn’t think that they’d receive negative attention. But unfortunately, the couple did. According to the Mirror, the couple received a hate letter in the mail four months before their reception. The couple had planned to have the reception in Hodge’s family barn after having the formal ceremony in Bristol. But after hearing word of that, one of Hodge’s neighbors, or possibly more, dropped the hate letter in the mailbox of his parent’s home.
The letter claimed to have the “consensus of the village” that the reception should be held elsewhere. The letter added that Hodge “should be ashamed of himself for putting his grandparents through this.” It then assessed that Hodge would no longer “be welcome in heaven” and that it wasn’t too late for his mother to lead him to a “new path.”
As for Hodge’s mother, Janie, it was her who first discovered the letter. She immediately reported it to the police, according to Yahoo News. That said, she chose to hide the letter from her sons until after the wedding.
“I was absolutely gobsmacked and just devastated to read it”, said the mother.
“It was addressed to me and said it was the consensus of the village that if the wedding was going to happen then it should do so far, far away from the village.”
“I didn’t want to speak to anyone or acknowledge anyone in the village because I thought everyone was out to get us.”
“It is vile. It made me feel completely unwelcome in the village. The letter is so cruel and it made me very upset.”
“I was so worried something would happen on the wedding day, like a protest or something. This person tried to ruin our day and it is so hateful.”
Police are currently investigating the letter as a potential hate crime, but thankfully its negative aura did not affect the couple or the wedding.
Congratulations to the happy couple. Best wishes for the future.
Sources: The Mirror, Yahoo News
Tell the village to get lost.
Write a letter back the villager(s) saying “fuck off, bigots!”