Benjamin Hostetter, the owner of Media Mansion in Denver, turned down a gay couple's wedding because his Christian faith tells him that gay people can't produce healthy families.
Hostetter recently told Anna Suhyda and her fiancée, Amanda Broadway to go elsewhere after he agreed to do their wedding but then found out it was two women.
Said Suhyda to The Denver Channel: “He asked, ‘What's your fiancée's name?' And I said, ‘Amanda.' And I could tell he kind of paused on the phone, but I thought he was maybe jotting down notes. Then I l got to work and looked at my email [which read] ‘unfortunately, at this time, we are not serving the LGBTQ community!' With an exclamation point. Kind of like a punch in the gut.”
Hostetter explained his bigotry: “I believe it has to do with family and producing healthy families. I don't think there's a lot of good evidence out there that two men or two women can come together and have a really amazing effective family that is good and is everlasting.”
Meanwhile, Hostetter's very upset that he's suddenly getting publicity for being anti-gay: “It really like just kind of exploded, and everyone just kind of assumed that we hate gay people, which is sad. I have friends who are gay, and if they want to hang out and me to do a video for them, it's totally cool. But specifically doing a project that would be against my beliefs in anything regardless of what the specifics of it is not something I want to engage in.”
