CENTRALIA, Wash. — A popular Centralia restaurant is receiving backlash after it backed out of catering a wedding.
The owner made the decision after finding out the wedding was for a same-sex marriage.
"A shock to me,” Rayah Calkins said. “We've never received like that blatant discrimination to our face."
Calkins and her fiancé, Lillian Glover, are hurting. After receiving this unexpected news about their wedding they're planning for January in Centralia.
"She kind of put her hands up to her face,” Calkins said. “I'm really sorry we're not going to be able to cater your wedding."
That's how the couple describes how the owner of JJ’s ToGo told them the restaurant would not be doing business with them. This comes after a month of discussion over Instagram with the restaurant to cater the big day. The couple met up with the business owner in person on Saturday to finalize the deal. The couple said the face-to-face meeting, finding out they were a lesbian couple, led to the owner canceling on them.
"Telling you after they visually see you two together, that, that's not something they can move forward with was… it's something you just can't really comprehend in the moment," Calkins said.
"We love them," said Jessica Britton, the owner of JJ's ToGo. "Jesus loves them. They are human just like us.
Britton said she does not discriminate against anyone, and this decision is following her faith.
"The part of a wedding being a religious ceremony and religious act between a man and a woman goes against my beliefs and my faith and I cannot participate," Britton said.
As the news has spread, Britton said there's been continuous threats against her family.
"I have had hundreds of people tell me that it would be better if I wasn't alive," Britton said.
“I don’t want anyone to violently react to them in any way," Calkin said. "No violent protests, peaceful only. I don't want any threats made to them or their family or their employees."
The couple does plan on taking legal action against the business. Until then, they're just happy another caterer, Crowded Kitchen in Toledo, accepts them and their marriage.
“When we shook their hand, you're family with us now,” Calkins said. “You stepped (up for) us in a moment, it was probably one of the biggest, hardest moments we've encountered in our lives."
In 2013 a Richland florist refused to provide flowers for a gay couple's wedding. The Washington State Supreme Court ruled that the florist broke the state's anti-discrimination law.
Her lawyer appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court which later upheld the lower court’s ruling. The owner of the flower shop agreed to pay a $5,000 settlement to the couple in 2021.