Christian caterer refuses to serve same-sex couple: Their wedding goes "against my beliefs"

A same-sex couple in Washington state is calling for a boycott of a local restaurant that refused to cater their wedding citing anti-LGBTQ+ Christian beliefs.

Rayah Calkins and Lillian Glover told local NBC affiliate KING-TV that they spent a month communicating via social media with Centralia, Washington, eatery JJ’s To Go about catering their January wedding. But it was only when they met in person that the restaurant’s owner, Jessica Britton, realized that they were a lesbian couple.

“She kind of put her hands up to her face and said, ‘I’m really sorry, we’re not going to be able to cater your wedding,’” Calkins recalled. “Telling you after they visually see you two together, that that’s not something they can move forward with was — it’s something you just can’t really comprehend in the moment.”

Calkins described the interaction as “one of the hardest moments we’ve ever had to encounter in our lives.”

Britton, meanwhile, cited her Christian faith as the reason for the decision in an interview with KING-TV. “We love them. Jesus loves them. They are human just like us,” she said. But, “the part of a wedding being a religious ceremony and a religious act between a man and a woman,” means that Calkins and Glover’s nuptials go “against my beliefs and my faith and I cannot participate,” she said.

The JJ’s owner claimed she’s received “continuous threats” against her family since word of the situation has spread. “I have had hundreds of people tell me it would be better if I wasn’t alive,” she said.

Calkins and Glover, however, are calling only for peaceful protests against the restaurant.

Rayah Calkins and Lillian Glover | Screenshot/KING-TV

“I don’t want anyone to violently react to them in any way,” Calkin said. “No violent protests, peaceful only. I don’t want any threats made to them or their family or their employees.”

The couple said they plan on taking legal action. In 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Washington State Supreme Court’s ruling that a Richland florist had violated the state’s anti-discrimination law when it refused to provide flowers for a gay couple’s 2013 wedding, citing religious beliefs.

However, with its 2023 decision in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, the court’s new conservative supermajority ruled that businesses cannot be compelled under state anti-discrimination laws to provide creative work to LGBTQ+ people that conflicts with their beliefs. It’s not clear if catering meets this definition.

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Originally published here.