Activists protested an Indianapolis
bakery on Monday after its owners refused to sell gay cookies.
Just Cookies, which is located inside
the publicly-owned City Market, denied a group of Indiana
University-Purdue University at Indianapolis (IUPUI) students from
placing an order of cupcakes for an October 11 National Coming Out
Day event. The bakery at first told the students that they only sold
cookies, but when the students asked for rainbow-frosted cookies,
they were told to go elsewhere.
In speaking about the controversy,
co-owner David Stockton likened colorful cookies to something
obscene.
“We have our values, and you know,
some things … for instance, if someone wants a cookie with an
obscenity, well, we're not going to sell that,” he told the
Indianapolis Star.
The demonstration was organized by
GetEQUAL Indiana, a gay rights group.
“We want them to change their
policies toward gays and lesbians, or we want them to get out of the
City Market and move someplace else,” GetEQUAL's David Stevens
said.
While several lawmakers, including
Mayor Greg Ballard, have expressed concern over the situation,
whether the owners have violated a city ordinance that bans
discrimination based on sexual orientation remains to be seen.
“What we intended the ordinance to do
was expand it to include veterans' rights, gender identity and sexual
orientation, things not to be discriminated against in housing,
education and employment, and that was it,” Scott Keller, a former
city official who co-sponsored the measure, told WRTV Channel 6.
“In the United States, citizens have
the right to demonstrate, and businesses have the right to operate
within the bounds of the law,” Just Cookies said in a statement
released Monday. “As citizens and owners of a small business, we
pray that our country remains a free Democratic society and these
rights are never taken away by anyone who seeks to unlawfully impose
their will or agenda on others.”