Lawsuit: Couple Says Printer Sent Them Wedding Pamphlets Equating Their Marriage to ‘Satan’s Temptation’
Satan ‘Preys Upon Our Weaknesses to Tempt Us to Sin’Â Pamphlets Say
An Australian couple traveled to Pennsylvania so all their friends could attend their wedding. But their happy day was marred, they say, after they ordered specialized wedding pamphlets but were sent instead “literature with hateful, discriminatory and anti-gay messages equating their relationship to Satan’s temptation,” their lawsuit against VistaPrint alleges.
“Our memories from that day should have been be filled with nothing but love and happiness,” the couple, Stephen Heasley and Andrew Borg tell NCRM in an email via their attorney. “Instead our memories are mixed with vivid memories of the moments where we were taken away from our wedding day, our thoughts filled with the worries and the disturbance that came from receiving the shocking hate mail only hours earlier.â€
Heasley, 39, and Borg, 31, started dating in March of 2015.
“This was by far the most direct, personal, and aggressive act of homophobia either of us has experienced to date,â€Â Heasley and Borg told Yahoo News. They married in Butler County back in September, but say memories of opening the box and seeing the anti-gay pamphlets still haunt them.
“The pamphlets — plainly sent to threaten and attack Mr. Heasley and Mr. Borg because they are gay — warn that ‘Satan entices your flesh with evil desires,’†the lawsuit reads, according to The New York Post.
“Understanding Temptation: Fight the good fight of the faith,” the pamphlets are titled. “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,” they say.
“Our goal is to hold Vistaprint accountable for the harm they have caused,” the couple says, “and to send a message that there will be consequences for acts of hate perpetrated against others.” They note they “were both emotionally devastated by Vistaprint’s intimidating and discriminatory conduct.”
Michael J. Willemin, a partner at Wigdor LLP, represents the couple. He tells NCRM via email that the case “presents a particularly egregious example of a company refusing to provide equal services to members of the LBGTQ community, and we are committed to holding Vistaprint and all companies who discriminate against LGBTQ individuals accountable for their actions.”
VistaPrint, based in Massachusetts, said through a spokesperson that the company “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,” VistaPrint adds. “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.”
The couple wants “to help prevent this from happening to someone else, and to send a message that there will be consequences for acts of hate perpetrated against others.”
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Image:Â Stephen Heasley and Andrew Borg, used with permission.
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