Story: Local bakery refuses to make rainbow cupcakes for gay customer

An Indianapolis bakery is under fire from the gay and lesbian community over a choice not to serve a diversity group.

Indianapolis —
An Indianapolis bakery is under fire from the gay and lesbian community over a choice not to serve a diversity group.

A campus organization said it was denied service in what's become a flashpoint in the fight for equal rights.

This is what they were after: a mulitcolored cupcake to celebrate "National Coming Out Day" next month; a rainbow confection to honor the diversity on the campus of IUPUI. But the student who had the order placed at Just Cookies was told no.

"We're right on the cusp of being equal with anyone else, I don't know why they would do that," said student Shan Parker.

That student's partner and close friend are both troubled by the refusal. They believe it shows Indianapolis has a ways to go to embrace the gay and lesbian community.

"They weren't asking to petition for anything, they were just ordering cupcakes for an event," said Rebecca Scherpelz.

Fox59 went to City Market to get the business's side of the story, Just Cookies, but we didn't get just one version of what happened.

"Look around, we don't have cupcakes," said owner Lilly Stockton.

Stockton said she talked to someone who did ask for rainbow cookies but couldn't accommodate the order.

Stockton: "I don't have enough colors to do that."

Reporter: "Not enough colors, not because you didn't like what they stood for?"

Stockton: "She didn't tell me what it was for."

Then we talked to her husband David, who gradually made it clear that there was an earlier order... and yes, the customer was refused.

"I explained we're a family-run business, we have two young, impressionable daughters and we thought maybe it was best not to do that," said co-owner David Stockton.

"Values" is the same word used in the other argument.

"I just hope that what comes out of this is that there's some dialogue and discussion on what we value in our community, how we share those values and how we interact with our community members," said Scherpelz.

And the end of the day, the order was placed with another bakery on Massachussetts Avenue. "National Coming Out Day" is Oct 11th.

IUPUI's spokesperson said the school has no formal complaint against the bakery and added embracing diversity means allowing the business owners the right to their opinion and the right to choose how to serve its customers, as long as those customers are not discriminated against.

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Make your thoughts known about the bakery at Urban Spoon .

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Watch a video of the story here.

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Katy Perry - Update

Here is an update to this post.

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According to the 9/23/10 Los Angeles Times:

When Katy Perry visited "Sesame Street," Elmo didn't seem to mind her cleavage -- but parents who previewed a version of her singing a rewritten "Hot N Cold" while playing tag with the furry red guy begged to differ.

Seems that sheer fabric that goes from neck to, um, places lower than Katy's neck on her "dress-up clothes" won't cut it as a preschool-appropriate outfit, with show producers Sesame Workshop deciding to pull the segment from the kids show's Sept. 27 season premiere.

"Sesame Street has always been written on two levels, for the child and adult. We use parodies and celebrity segments to interest adults in the show because we know that a child learns best when co-viewing with a parent or care-giver," the producers said Thursday in a statement.

"We also value our viewer’s opinions and particularly those of parents. In light of the feedback we’ve received on the Katy Perry music video which was released on You Tube only, we have decided we will not air the segment on the television broadcast of Sesame Street, which is aimed at preschoolers. Katy Perry fans will still be able to view the video on You Tube."

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From my other blog, here are tons more shirtless pics of Alexander Rodriguez.

Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock

Gotta love The Big Bang Theory!


1) Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock
Scissors cuts paper,
paper covers rock,
rock crushes lizard,
lizard poisons Spock,
Spock smashes scissors,
scissors decapitates lizard,
lizard eats paper,
paper disproves Spock,
Spock vaporizes rock,
and rock crushes scissors.


2) One of my favorites, Wil Wheaton has guest starred twice - so far.


3) They wear cool costumes.

Katy Perry

Carlos calls Katy Perry the poor man's Zooey Deschanel.

Well, call me a poor man. I don't like a lot of current music, but I really like her.

My favorite song of hers is Hot N Cold. Bonus: The hot guy in the video. (His name is Alexander Rodriguez.)



Here is a link to the original video. ("Embedding disabled by request.")

I was thinking of all this today because I found this video - her singing a version of the song with Elmo on Sesame Street.



Want more shirtless pictures of Alex Rodriguez - this one, not the baseball player? See my other blog.

The It Gets Better Project

From Dan Savage via here:

I’ve launched a channel on YouTube to host these videos. My normally camera-shy husband and I already posted one. We both went to Christian schools and we were both bullied — he had it a lot worse than I did — and we are living proof that it gets better. We don’t dwell too much on the past. Instead, we talk mostly about all the meaningful things in our lives now — our families, our friends (gay and straight), the places we’ve gone and things we’ve experienced—that we would’ve missed out on if we’d killed ourselves then.

“You gotta give ’em hope,” Harvey Milk said.

Today we have the power to give these kids hope. We have the tools to reach out to them and tell our stories and let them know that it gets better. Online support groups are great, GLSEN does amazing work, the Trevor Project is invaluable. But many LGBT youth can’t picture what their lives might be like as openly gay adults. They can’t imagine a future for themselves. So let’s show them what our lives are like, let’s show them what the future may hold in store for them.

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Here is the initial video and below-video description from their YouTube channel.



"If you're gay or lesbian, or bi or trans, and you've ever read about a kid like Billy Lucas (pictured below) and thought, "Fuck, I wish I could've told him that it gets better," this is your chance. We can't help Billy, but there are lots of other Billys out there—other despairing LGBT kids who are being bullied and harassed, kids who don't think they have a future—and we can help them..."

NPR's 50 Great Voices

I'm loving NPR's ongoing series 50 Great Voices.

Among the 50 that have been profiled are Irma Thomas, Freddie Mercury, Bjork, Ella Fitzgerald, Donny Hathaway, and Janis Joplin. There are also quite a few artists that I am not familiar with: Fairuz, Khaled, Sezen Aksu, and so on.

Tonight's segment was about Robert Plant. Fantastic.

Gay Men Achieve World-Record Longest Kiss

This is just adorable...

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Gay Men Achieve World-Record Longest Kiss

Standing in a tent on the campus of The College of New Jersey, Matty Daley and Bobby Canciello earned a place in the Guinness World Records today by kissing for 33 hours. They livestreamed video of it and just finished.


When I tuned in to Matty and Bobby's Ustream video channel around 8PM, that had just emerged victorious. Their fans cheering in the background, Bobby sipped water from a bottle and Matty leaned into the camera and thanked the internet. The rules for "Longest Continuous Kiss" specify that the couple must be standing and in a public venue. The duo devised a system of hand signals and stretching exercises to get them through the physically grueling feat of staying awake for a day and a half, standing with your mouth mashed against someone else's. Here's a sample:



Adult diapers are not allowed either (Guinness isn't into fetish kisses?) so the lads did a "cleanse" and nutritional training, too. No word on whether they peed at any point; before embarking on the kiss, they acknowledged having a contingency plan for that.

Matty and Bobby's stated goal was to "queer the Guinness World Records.". They are not lovers but "just friends." Bobby got permission from his boyfriend before embarking on the kiss.

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The original article is here.

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Update: Here is a post-record story and interview with the guys.