Whole Foods Market Being Sued For Homophobic Slur Written On Cake, Calls Hoax [Video]


Whole Foods Market is being sued by a Texas pastor after he says a bakery worker added an anti-gay slur to his cake. Pastor Jordan Brown, the openly gay pastor of the non-denominational Church of Open Doors says he purchased a cake from Whole Foods Market’s flagship Austin location on April 14. According to the pastor, the Whole Foods cake was purchased for a member of his congregation, a blank cake with blue frosting that he picked out from the bakery case at the store.

Pastor Brown says that he pointed out the cake to the Whole Foods employee working at the bakery, reports Fox News, and asked the employee to add the words “Love Wins” on top in icing. Up until then, the pastor had found nothing out of the ordinary about his Whole Foods Market experience. He didn’t notice that the Whole Foods bakery worker had added an extra word to the cake until he got out to his car.

The pastor alleges that the one additional word turned what should have been a sweet cake into a potential hate crime. Check out his version of events, which was shared in a video released by Kaplan Law Firm, which is now representing pastor Brown.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p972qntg1qM

The word that was allegedly added by a Whole Foods Market employee to the gay pastor’s cake? A common anti-gay slur, and one of the most hurtful and insulting. F**.

What the pastor saw when he looked at his cake were the words “Love Wins F**.”

According to the pastor, his experience with Whole Foods Market brought back past experiences of discrimination.

“For me it was humiliating. Because being a pastor who is openly gay, I’ve had to deal with this in the past.”

Pastor Brown told the media that after realizing that the cake he had purchased from Whole Foods Market had been, in effect, vandalized, he called the Austin store to let management know about his experience. He says that he was able to contact Team Leader Geoff Nunez. Allegedly, the Whole Foods Team Leader was initially “extremely apologetic” and asked that Brown allow the matter to be handled “internally” by Whole Foods.

However, after a two-hour wait for a return call, pastor Brown states that he finally received a return call from Nunez to update him about the situation. According to the pastor, Team Leader Nunez had changed his tune and told Brown that there was “nothing he could do” about the situation, despite his alleged initial apologies.

Whole Foods Market has now released a statement in regards to the situation. In this statement, Whole Foods denies any culpability or wrongdoing by the employee in the bakery who allegedly vandalized the pastor’s cake with hate speech, or any of its employees. The statement from Whole Foods Market also indicates that the bakery employee in question is also LGBT.

“Our team member wrote ‘love wins’ at the top of the cake as requested by the guest, and that’s exactly how the cake was packaged and sold at the store. Our team members do not accept or design bakery orders that include language or images that are offensive. Whole Foods Market has a zero tolerance policy for discrimination. We stand behind our bakery team member, who is part of the LGBT community, and the additional team members from the store, who confirmed the cake was decorated with only the message ‘Love Wins.'”

In the video shared by pastor Brown’s legal representatives, the box packaging the cake appears to still be sealed with its original Whole Foods Market label, but that hasn’t stopped a debate about the authenticity of the pastor’s allegations against Whole Foods from raging on social media, with many users calling “hoax.”

Now it appears that Whole Foods is calling the incident a hoax, too, reports Danger and Play. Reportedly, Whole Foods Market has released a video of its own, calling out pastor Brown for what they call a “hoax” against the grocer. In the video, security camera footage, you can allegedly see that the label on the cake box was in a different position when Brown purchased the cake than it was when he recorded his video alleging the homophobic slur.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyoluahNZZs

“After reviewing their security footage of Mr. Brown, it’s clear that the UPC label was in fact on top of the cake box, not on the side of the package. This is evident as the cashier scans the UPC code on top of the box.”

Whole Foods Market says that it intends to take legal action against pastor Brown for what the company calls his “fraudulent actions.”

[Image Courtesy Of Spencer Platt/Getty Images]

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