Madison’s Café in O’Fallon, Missouri (screen capture)
A same-sex couple in Missouri were surprised when the restaurant they had booked for their wedding rehearsal dinner cancelled the reservation upon learning their sexual orientation.
Kendall Brown and Mindy Rackley are getting married on June 15, and had planned on holding their rehearsal dinner on June 13 at Madison’s Café.
Newsweek reports that the couple chose the restaurant because it had been Rackley’s father’s favorite place to dine before he passed away two-and-a-half years ago. Holding the dinner there prior to their union was meant as a way to honor his memory.
Brown’s mother made the reservation on Monday evening, but the next day Brown received a call from the cafe asking for more information.
“Her first question was, ‘what is your groom’s name?’” explained Brown. “I said, ‘I’m marrying a woman actually and her name is Mindy.’”
From the other end of the call came the question: “Your spouse is another woman?”
Brown told the woman ‘yes.’
And with that, the woman at the restaurant told Brown, “We’re gonna have to refer you to someone else for your dinner because we don’t condone that kind of relationship.”
“Out of love for you, we’re going to have to decline your business because we believe you’re in an unhealthy relationship,” added the woman.
Brown immediately called her fiancée in tears.
Rackley told Newsweek the conversation “saddened” her.
“I just can’t believe that this is still happening and that we get treated differently because of who we love,” she said. “Who we love doesn’t change who we are and, I don’t know, it just saddens me.”
Local news station KMOV reached out to Madison’s Café for their side of the story.
According to the news station, “A woman at the restaurant acknowledged the couple’s situation but did not want to comment.”
After their story went viral on social media, several local restaurants reached out, and the couple has booked another establishment for their dinner.
Brown told Newsweek she understands that the owner’s of Madison’s Café are entitled to their beliefs, but they shared their story on social media because they want other people to be “aware so that they don’t have to feel the way we felt.”
“In this day and age, this is just not okay,” she added.
