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Texas couple claims homophobic hotel chef refused to cater their wedding
Daren Merchant and Rick O’Connor decided to get married after 24 years together.
But they say they were in for a rude awakening when they picked for their reception the Hilton Garden Inn just north of Dallas where Merchant’s daughter is an employee.
Merchant took to Facebook to complain that his daughter overheard the hotel chef voicing his opposition to the event.
‘The chef was refusing to do the dinner for the reception,’ Merchant tells KDFW-TV. ‘He had major issues with us being a gay couple,’ said Merchant. ‘…About us having the right to be married, about it creating the apocalypse, about it causing all sorts of other issues, comparing us to Caitlin Jenner.’
Merchant complained to Hilton management but said he was not taken seriously until he shared the incident on social media.
‘I tweeted a short sentence about the issue and all of the sudden Hilton took notice,’ he wrote on Facebook.
Still, he wrote that it took more than a week for the hotel manager to contact him and received further run around’ and was ‘passed back and forth.’ It was then that he wrote about the incident, in detail, on his Facebook page.
‘I am actually shocked that in the day and age that something like this still happens as in the 24 years Rick and I have been together we have never had to face this from any corporation in any industry,’ he wrote.
The story quickly spread and on Thursday (27 August), Merchant finally felt like he was being taken seriously.
He posted an update on Facebook saying he had received a call from the President of Texas Hotel and Lodging Association calling on behalf of the hotel and they had ‘a very long conversation.’
Merchant wrote that the two had discussed ‘a very agreeable solution’ but did not share specifics. He did say he was assured there had been a ‘staffing change.’
‘I do feel that his intentions are honorable and both Rick and I agreed to take his resolution to heart and seriously consider it.,’ he wrote.
Merchant thanked everyone for their support but wants hotel management to be left alone at this point because they have ‘come across to me as being very sorry that the situation occurred and they truly understand and are sorry for the stress this has caused us.’
The post Texas couple claims homophobic hotel chef refused to cater their wedding appeared first on Gay Star News.
Greg Hernandez
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