Kentucky Print Shop: God, Beards, Guns A-Okay, Gays Unwelcome

Herald Embroidery in Oak Grove, Kentucky wants you to know that if you’re “promoting homosexuality” or “the use of foul language,” they don’t want to serve you.

According to her review on Google+, Jeri Vercetti says she and her wife were made to feel unwelcome at the store (and apparently they hadn’t seen the signage when they came in).

My wife and I went into this shop to get shirts for my parent’s anniversary. We went in holding hands and the clerks gave us dirty looks the entire time. We didn’t understand why; maybe they thought we were suspicious? I confronted one of the employees and they directed me to a sticker in the window. It had a pride flag on it and it basically meant gays weren’t welcome. My wife and I were heartbroken; we just wanted shirts made! But…we wasted a trip for nothing. Guess we’ll get our shirts online next time. So sad about this treatment.

After the review was posted and the store started getting more online comments as well as complaints, they decided to change out the signage and replace it with a disclaimer.

Notice: We recently posted five 3″ stickers on the front entrance to our shop. Two of these stickers are negative and prohibitive in their message. After some public confusion as to the meaning of one which depicted a rainbow flag, we’ve replaced them with a clarification.

“While we will serve all customers who treat our place of business with respect, we reserve the right to refuse to produce promotional products that promote ideas that are not in keeping with our consciences. This includes, but is not limited to content promoting homosexuality, freemasonry, the use of foul language, and imagery which promotes immodesty.”

Sorry, Herald Embroidery, your replacement of the overtly hostile signage with the above clarification doesn’t magically replace your bigotry and that of your employees with a new found love and tolerance for LGBT+ people who may find their way into your store. And I figure that’s going to be a lot fewer of them.