The Vermont inn that made headlines for refusing to host a same-sex wedding reception is campaigning for a new title: The Wildflower Inn in Lyndonville is vying for the “readers’ choice” award for favorite New England family resort on About.com. And so far it’s winning: As of today, it’s 14 points ahead of the other four nominees in the polls.
Asked whether the inn’s family-friendly reputation extends to same-sex families, owner Jim O’Reilly says, “Oh, absolutely. The thing that came out about the wedding thing has nothing to do with our families that visit with us, whether they’re same-sex or heterosexual. We treat them all, everybody, the same.”
“The wedding thing” refers to the lawsuit that lesbian couple Ming and Kate Linsley brought against the Wildflower Inn after the owners refused, in 2010, to host the couple’s same-sex wedding reception. The lawsuit resulted in a settlement last August in which the Wildflower Inn agreed to pay the Vermont Human Rights Commission a $10,000 civil penalty and donate $20,000 to the American Civil Liberties Union, which represented the couple a charitable trust established by the couple.
The inn’s owners also said they would no longer host weddings or receptions at the Lyndonville getaway.
The owners, Jim and Mary O’Reilly, cropped up again in the news a few weeks later: They appeared in a television ad in Maine opposing same-sex marriage. The Portland Press Herald called the ad “misleading” and “mostly false”, because the innkeepers were sued for breaking a 1992 antidiscrimination law, not Vermont’s 2009 same-sex marriage law.
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Here’s to a couple working hard to keep their Inn open in trying times.
Here’s to racists who deserve to go the way of the same ‘friendly’ innkeepers that refused to serve black people. Racists are scum, no matter who they are discriminating against. And heaven knows religion has been used as an excuse to disenfranchise people from the beginning of time. Please go and VOTE for the other inns, stand up for all people and against discrimination.
I don’t agree with what they did, or their decision to appear in a political ad referencing the lawsuit they settled, but they are part of the landscape and I’m glad they’re doing well.
Do you know the difference between racism and religious or sexual orientation discrimination? I haven’t heard that these people ever refused anyone based on skin color.