Current Affairs

Homophobic wedding boutique closed to the public after receiving violent threats

Jul 29 2017
Written by Meka Beresford

A homophobic wedding shop in the US has had to close its doors to the public after receiving violent threats.

The owners of W.W. Bridal Boutique have said that the store will only be taking appointments and will not have its doors open for walk-ins due to threats.

It comes after they turned away a lesbian couple who were dress shopping for their wedding.

Co-owner Victora Miller said that they had received violent messages and voicemails after they turned a lesbian couple away.

One man allegedly said in a voicemail: “You stupid f*cking bigots. We are coming for you and your family.

“We are going to tear your shop apart and make you feel as bad as you have made people feel.

“You f*cking bigot scum. You are going down and so are all your employees and their families. You’re done,” the violent message concluded.

Miller said that they had “always served” customers from “all walks of life”.

“We have provided formal wear for our customers from all walks of life, including the LGBTQ community,” Miller said.

“We have always served everyone with respect and dignity. It is just this event, a same-sex marriage, which we cannot participate in due to our personal convictions.

“We simply ask that we be given the same ability to live our lives according to our convictions,” she added.

Lesbian couple Shannon Kennedy and Julie Ann Samanas recently got engaged and visited the bridal shop to do some dress shopping for Samanas.

The shop, W.W. Boutique in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, handed the couple a form to fill out when they got there.

The form asked for the name of the bride and groom, and so they crossed out groom and replaced it with Kennedy’s name.

When they handed the form back to the assistant, she reportedly asked if the wedding would be same-sex.

When the assistant came to realise this, she told the couple that the shop could not be of service to them.

Kennedy explained: “She said, ‘I don’t know if you’ve heard, but we’re Christian and we don’t believe in that; our faith doesn’t let us believe in that’.”

The pair left immediately as they were schooled that religion would stand in the way of their happy day.

Kennedy said: “I think we were kind of in shock.

“We all looked at each other and went, ‘Oo-k’ and walked out. It was unexpected. Afterwards, you think of everything you should have said.”