A restaurant owner in New Bern, North
Carolina handed a lesbian couple a letter condemning their
relationship after they patronized his establishment.
Ed McGovern, the owner of The Stingray
Cafe, does not deny he gave Ariel and Shawnee McPhail the letter but
says he did it out of love.
“God said in the last days that man
and wom[a]n would be lover of self, more [than] the lover of God,”
the letter reads.
“That man and woman would have
unnatural [affection] for one another. Then, the coming of the Son
of Man, who is Jesus. So please, look at your life. See how it
hurt[s] everyone around you. And ask the Lord to open your eye[s]
before it [is] to[o] late.”
McGovern added in a postscript: “[M]y
daughter also was gay. It destroy[ed] her life and my grandson.”
The women, who married in the District
of Columbia, denied McGovern's claim that they were kissing in his
restaurant, which he said prompted him to write the letter.
“First of all, we didn't kiss,”
Shawnee McPhail told ABC affiliate WCTI
News 12. “We don't kiss in public. We were holding hands.
Secondly, if I did kiss my wife in public, what married couple would
you go to and say, 'How dare you. You cannot hold hands and you
cannot kiss in public therefore you deserve my judgment.'”