And guess what? The graphics company that refused their business has a logo with rainbow colors.
This happened in my neck of the woods. Here's the article from the local newspaper: Firm with rainbow logo won't design rainbow logo for gay-friendly Fargo church.
St. Mark's Lutheran Church had recently been in talks with Custom Graphics Inc., 2501 3rd Ave. N., about creating a logo for the church. But after church council members requested that the logo contain rainbow colors, Custom Graphics General Manager Zach Paxton ended the business relationship.
"The business was declined respectfully," Paxton said. "I didn't mean any offense by it or anything like that."
Ironically, Custom Graphics' own logo features rainbow colors. Nevertheless, Paxton said he wasn't comfortable with designing a logo for St. Mark's that would have advertised what he described as the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender movement.
Just a few thoughts off the top of my head:
- There are lots of Lutherans in this part of the country and the biggest U.S. Lutheran synod (Evangelical Lutheran Church in American (ELCA)) has been very progressive about LGBT rights. I know there have been some churches that left ELCA because of this. As someone with Norwegian-Lutheran roots, I'm used to schisms. Way back in the 1850s, before the Civil War, the Missouri Synod Lutherans (mostly German-Americans) were arguing that slavery was acceptable because it was in the Bible. Most Norwegian and Swedish Lutherans in America were against slavery.
- Just a few weeks ago, the Lutheran Church in Norway (the official state church) approved of same-sex marriages... Norway's Lutheran church votes in favor of same-sex marriage.
- Recently, several bills have been introduced in the North Dakota legislature to make LGBT people a protected class. But the bills always fail because the legislature is very, very Republican. It's still legal in ND for a landlord to refuse to rent to gay people. Or for companies to fire someone because he or she is gay. Clearly, there is much work to be done.
- The Facebook page for Custom Graphics now has a lot of very angry posts. It's pretty obvious that this bigoted decision will cost them a lot of business.
- I think the Supreme Court decision legalizing equal marriage was a great step forward. But we'll continue to see the issue of equal rights argued and litigated for years to come. And that's why we need more and better Democrats at every level of government.