Canadian Jeweler Bullied, Threatened for Expressing Opposition to Same Sex Marriage

Canadian jeweler, Esau Jardon, wanted to express his opposition to same sex marriage.  So he put up a poster in his store expressing that view.  When word got back to Nicole White and Pam Renouf, a lesbian couple for whom Jardon had custom designed an engagement ring, they demanded their money back.

“The ring symbolizes love, and just knowing that that’s the sign that they have up there — every time I look at my ring, yes, I’ll think of us, clearly, but also everything we went through. So I don’t want my ring from there anymore. I just want my refund,” Nicole White told The Telegram Saturday.

She and her fiancée, Pam Renouf, don’t mind doing business with people whose beliefs are different from their own, she said, but it’s disrespectful to display the message in a business.

The Newfoundland Telegram reports that Jardon believed they were misunderstanding the poster, that it was simply an expression of his view and not a statement against the legality of same sex marriage:

“It doesn’t even mention homosexuals or a specific group within that. It could talk about, for example, the sanctity of the traditional family. There are other forms of heterosexuals that are practising that (my family doesn’t) believe in, that we think the traditional form is the best way. For example, if people are cohabitating,” he said. 

He told The Telegram that while he believes in a traditional family, he does not believe same-sex marriage should be illegal. 

He said he wanted to make it clear that the store owners don’t hate individuals or think they’re bad people; they just don’t believe in certain “behaviours.”

But that clarification and giving a refund were not enough.  Jardon had publicly expressed incorrect political thoughts and he and his business became a target.  The Telegram describes what happened:

Since the story emerged ..., Jardon, who owns the store with his brother, said he has been bullied, intimidated and even threatened.

“One of the reasons my family chose to move to Canada was the rights that it offered, the freedom of religion and freedom of speech, both of which at the time seemed to be very limited in Mexico,” he said. 

However, due to posting our religious beliefs, many people in Newfoundland want us to shut down business — that’s what they’ve been telling us.”

He said some threats came with names and others were anonymous.

“One of them states that ‘you better give them the money back or you will be very, very sorry,’” he said.

... 

Jardon said the store’s Facebook page received so many angry messages they removed it.

But that was not enough.  The bullies proceeded to create dummy Facebook and other accounts to continue attacks on Jardon.  The Telegram details those efforts:

On a new Facebook page under the name Today’s Jewellers, the controversial poster is used as the cover photo and this message is posted: “Welcome to our new Facebook Page. We had to take the old one down because anti-Christians were attacking it.”

Another post by the business, which shows a photo of a ring, reads: “Our new French language collection would look beautiful on the finger of a woman getting married to a man.”

A personal account under the name Jardon Esau showed a picture of skeletons burning under the caption “WE SUPPORT SAME-SEX MARRIAGE.”

I remember being on the political discussion show, Civil Discourse, a couple years ago.  The discussion that day was same sex marriage, a cause that I was certain my conservative friends were going to lose.  I tried to expand the discussion that day to include what I thought the battle would eventually be about, including demands that business owners provide services that directly conflicted with their religious opposition to homosexuality and same sex marriage.  Every same sex marriage advocate that day said the same thing, that they were supporting an expansion of marriage to include same sex couples as a civil right and they would be respectful and tolerant of those who disagree. They insisted, for example, that a baker should have every right to not bake a cake for a same sex wedding. 

What are these LGBT rights advocates doing now that they appear to have won the battle over marriage?  I see them on social media all the time. They are insisting the baker needs to bake that cake, that the restaurant owner needs to cater a lesbian wedding, that the photographer should be forced to photograph a same sex marriage.  The tolerance that they promised for people who had religious and other objections to homosexuality and same sex marriage is long gone.