Fury Over Anti-Gay
Landscapers
by AP from365Gay.com
on the Web, November 9, 2006
Houston, Texas -- A few short
weeks ago, Garden Guy was just a mom-and-pop landscaping business that promoted
itself as "making Houston beautiful since 1991" and promised to treat its
customers with respect and honesty.
Since then, though, the business has been vilified around the world as a bunch
of bigots because its Christian conservative owners refused to do work for a gay
couple.
Michael Lord and Gary Lackey, a gay couple requesting bids for a landscaping job
at their new house, received a polite -- and, well, honest -- e-mail from
Sabrina Farber, a co-owner of Garden Guy: "I need to tell you that we
cannot meet with you because we choose not to work for homosexuals."
Stunned, Lackey forwarded the e-mail to 200 friends, asking them not to
patronize Garden Guy and urging them to pass the word on to friends and family.
"I'm still shocked by the ignorance that exists in today's society," Lackey said
in his e-mail.
And word was indeed passed on -- as fast as the Web could carry it.
Within days, the e-mail had been forwarded to thousands of people around the
world, and quickly became the subject of heated and often ugly debates on the
Internet. Because of the furor, a professional association of landscapers
created a nondiscrimination policy.
A forum on the Garden Guy Web site, normally reserved for discussions about
landscaping and shrubbery, was bombarded with angry comments and venomous
attacks from as far away as Australia.
Some people attacked the Farbers' beliefs, threatened the couple and their five
children, and said they ought to be sodomized. Others condemned gays as
sinners headed toward damnation.
Farber, whose company's Web site has long included Biblical quotes and a link to
a Web site that opposes gay marriage, said she was shocked by the reaction.
"It was just our intent to uphold our rights as small business owners to choose
our clientele," she said. "All the hate, the threats of sodomizing my
children, the threats of me being murdered, came out because of a very
businesslike straightforward e-mail I sent. The crowd of tolerance and
diversity is not so tolerant."
But Farber said she and her husband have also gotten hundreds of calls and
messages offering encouragement and have been touched by that. "We just
cried. We have been through so much," Farber said. "We become
accidental crusaders for Christ."
Lackey and Lord did not return calls from the Associated Press.
"Imagine if it had been a black or Hispanic couple that they wouldn't provide
services to. It's really bad," said Jack Valinski, a Houston gay activist.
"A lot of gay couples have kids, live in the suburbs and have neighbors that are
straight. Yet, we still have instances like this. There is still
always that underlying discrimination we all have to deal with."
Houston, unlike Austin and Dallas, has no ordinance prohibiting businesses from
discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation.
Farber's e-mail reached the Harrisburg, Pa., offices of the Association of
Professional Landscape Designers, which said that the Farbers were
misrepresenting themselves as current members of the group and no longer belong.
After receiving hundreds of outraged calls and e-mails, the 1,200-member
association issued a statement criticizing the Farbers and created a
nondiscrimination policy.
"It has come to our attention that a former member has declined a professional
engagement on the grounds of the prospective clients' sexual orientation.
This conduct does not conform to the policy and practice of APLD," the
organization said.
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