In an ABC What Would You Do?
segment broadcast Friday,
customers in a bridal shop stepped up to defend a lesbian bride when
she was turned away by a clerk because of her sexual orientation.
In the scenario staged by ABC producers
at the Bella Sposa Bridal boutique in Denville, New Jersey, actors
played out a scene inspired by a real life story.
Alix Genter, a graduate student at
Rutgers University in New Jersey, last summer was denied a wedding
dress after the owner found out that she was marrying another woman.
One woman decided to take her business
elsewhere, two boldly confronted the clerk and a daughter and mother
became emotional.
“If she's a lesbian, I'm not selling
her a dress,” the clerk told one woman. “That's nasty.”
“You're nasty,” the customer
responded. “And your ripping the clips off of her, that was
nasty.”
An African-American woman seated next
to her mother told the clerk to consider the prejudice of the past:
“If I was marrying a white man, I wouldn't have been sold a dress
either. I'm hurting for you right now. I want to cry.” (The
video is embedded in the right panel of this page. Visit
our video library for more videos.)