Aussie gay couple sent 'Satan's temptation' pamphlets instead of wedding programs by printer
Two Australian gay men were horrified when a box they expected to be their wedding programs instead contained fire and brimstone pamphlets warning of "Satan enticing your flesh".
Stephen Heasley, 31, and Andrew Borg, 39, had ordered 100 programs for their September 2017 wedding in Pennsylvania from popular printing company Vistaprint.
They opened the box on the eve of their wedding to find 80 copies of a pamphlet titled “Understanding Temptation: Fight the good fight of faith", that included various messages such as “Satan knows our flesh is weak”.
The couple have now filed a lawsuit against Vistaprint accusing the company of sending them hateful, anti-gay literature, claiming breach of contract and emotional pain.
“At first we thought it was simply a mistake, and we had accidentally received someone else’s order but once we saw the images and actually read a bit of the pamphlet, we quickly realised this wasn’t a simple or innocent error,” the couple told Yahoo.
“Both of our initial reactions were ones of shock, utter shock. The wording and imagery was aggressive, threatening, and deeply personally offensive.”
The claim was filed on Tuesday in US District Court of Massachusetts, the state where the company in question, Vistaprint, is based.
“This was by far the most direct, personal, and aggressive act of homophobia either of us has experienced to date,” they added, regarding the shipment of homophobic pamphlets.
The wedding programs were supposed to have listed the order of events, members of their wedding party, and lyrics to the Above & Beyond song “Treasure,” which played as they walked down the aisle.
Instead the pamphlets they received warned that, among other notions, “Satan can only influence us to want to sin. He cannot make us sin.”
Despite their horror at what they'd received, the couple was determined to go ahead with their wedding and paid to have replacements made up by another company.
“We realised that whoever had sent this had our personal addresses,” Mr Heasley, a portfoilo manager recalled.
“We were getting married on a family farm in what we understand to be a fairly conservative and rural part of Pennsylvania. If ill-intentioned people decided to target our wedding and guests, we would have very few options to escape or seek shelter.”
The couple then hired legal representation — Cetrullo in Boston and Wigdor in New York City — to go after Vistaprint, and are now seeking an award of unspecified damages and a trial by jury.
Vistaprint spokesperson Sara Nash told Yahoo Lifestyle that they 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 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.
