by Taylor Dobbs | July 19, 2011
A lesbian couple is suing the Wildflower Inn in Lyndonville for discrimination. The resort, which is a renowned tourist destination in the Northeast Kingdom, refused to allow the couple to hold a reception on the premises because the two women are gay.
The Vermont chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union is representing the couple.
Katherine Baker and Ming-Lien Linsley of New York City were planning a Vermont wedding and put Linsley’s mother, Channie Peters, in charge of the reception. Peters emailed the Vermont Convention Bureau for help finding a venue and was contacted by the Wildflower Inn, via email. “You could not offer a better ‘destination wedding’ location for your guests,” a staffer said.
Five minutes after Peters’ phone call to Wildflower’s Meeting and Events director, in which she clarified that the reception consisted of “two brides” and not a bride and groom, she received a second email with the subject line: “I have bad news.” The email went on to state that “due to
personal feelings, they do not host gay receptions at our facility.” In a later conversation, the same employee said the same thing had happened to three different couples over the course of a year.
The lawsuit filed by Baker and Linsley claims that this policy is in violation of Vermont’s Fair Housing and Public Accommodations Act, which states that the owner or operator of a “place of public accommodation” cannot deny accommodations to anyone on the grounds of “race, creed, color, national origin, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity.”
The lawsuit, which was filed in Caledonia County Superior Court, requests nominal damages of $1, and a declaration that Wildflower’s conduct was in violation of state law, and Wildflower coverage of the couple’s legal fees.
Baker said they were “sad and shocked” when they learned of the inn’s policy. Linsley said that until this event, she had never been discriminated against to this extent and now she felt the need to stand up to ensure no more couples were turned away based on their sexuality.
The couple plans to be married and hold a reception at another Vermont location – which they would not disclose for privacy reasons – this fall.
Baker and Linsley were engaged in October 2010. According to the lawsuit, they had planned “a traditional Buddhist wedding ceremony at a religious retreat,” followed by a reception for friends and family at another location.
The Vermont Convention Bureau recommended the Wildflower Inn to the couple.
A receptionist for Wildflower Inn said the innkeepers “are not taking any calls.”
Under Vermont statutes, there are two narrow exemptions to the public accommodations statute that applies to religious organizations and lodging accommodations with fewer than five rooms. The Wildflower Inn does not qualify for an exemption under either category, according to the lawsuit.
The complaint alleges that Baker and Linsley have been “aggrieved by violation of” public accommodation laws and have suffered “stigmatizing injury and deprivation of personal dignity that accompany denials of equal access to public establishments.”
The 24-room Wildflower Inn has been featured in articles in the National Geographic Traveler, Boston Magazine, Yankee Magazine, Bing Travel, the Boston Globe, Montreal Gazette, Vermont Magazine, Bloomberg.com, Travel and Leisure and USA Today.
The lawsuit states that the resort has 50 employees and annual revenues of $2.5 million and $5 million.
http://vtdigger.org/2011/07/19/gay-brides-sue-wildflower-inn-on-grounds-of-discrimination/
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