Charlottesville’s gay pride celebration is just over a week away, and its organizer has hit a speed bump. A Pennsylvania company asked to manufacture special baseball caps has declined to do business with the group.
The annual Cville Pride Day is expected to draw more than 5,000 people to celebrate the gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender community, and organizer Lisa Green wanted some special baseball caps to sell. They would be gray with purple lettering spelling out the slogan: Y’all Means All, but a Pennsylvania manufacturer – Legacy Athletic – doesn’t want the business.
“We got an e-mail from them that declined the offer," she says. "Charlottesville Pride is a gay pride organization, and we refuse to do business with political activists.”
“Legacy carefully nurtures and protects our brand,” the company wrote, “by avoiding any logos that might be deemed as controversial, political, offensive, etc,” the firm wrote. “In light of recent events in Charlottesville as well as the fact Gay Pride events are political activism; we respectfully decline this order, We hope you can understand our position.”
The news surprised Green, who sees it as a small setback in the scheme of things.
“I was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ but it was the same day as our president declared that our dreamers would be deported, and so it was just one of those – ahhh – one more thing today?’”
And, she adds, there’s a silver lining to this sleight.
“I will tell you that we’ve had multiple offers. I would assume that if I get hats they’ll sell now. They seem to be a hot ticket item.”
Legacy could not be reached for comment. Cville Pride is set for September 16th – and Green says she’s run out of room for vendors who want to be there to sell goods and services.
After this story aired, Legacy Athletic shared this statement:
Regarding our decision not to produce hats for the 2017 Cville Pride Festival, we want to emphasize Legacy is neither anti-gay nor discriminatory in any way. Nothing could be further from the truth. Legacy’s core has always been a brand in the collegiate, resort and corporate channels; and this is the realm in which we wish to remain. However, as our company’s popularity has grown, we continue to receive requests from all sorts of clubs, organizations and event planners with requests for putting their logos on our branded apparel. Thus, we recently implemented new guidelines and policies to help us manage this influx of requests. These guidelines and brand standards will ensure we stay committed to our core brand.
As a company, our policy includes the thoughtful and deliberate decision to avoid orders that may be potentially perceived within the realm of political and social activism regardless of what side of the ideological spectrum those organizations or events fall. A decision to reject graphics that could fall into these realms in no way means we agree or disagree with the organization’s mission, but that we simply want to remain neutral in all situations.
In conclusion, we hope this explanation provides much-needed context as to the basis for our decision. We respect all walks of life and value deeply in the freedoms afforded to us all as Americans.
Thank you for listening.
-Legacy Athletic