KENTUCKY: Hate Group Tells Appeals Court That T-Shirt Maker Didn’t Discriminate Against Lexington Pride

The Lexington Herald-Leader reports:

A lawyer for Lexington-based Hands on Originals told a three-judge panel of the Kentucky Court of Appeals Tuesday his client objected to the message on a 2012 Lexington Pride Festival T-shirt but does not discriminate against gays or same-sex couples.

Jim Campbell, a lawyer with the nonprofit Alliance Defending Freedom, said Blaine Adamson, the owner of Hands on Originals, has also not printed shirts and other memorabilia that depicts illegal drugs and other messages that Adamson’s religious and personal beliefs did not support.

“The record shows that they have declined over the years to promote messages that promote illegal drug use or strip clubs or pornographic movies or violent messages,” Campbell said during oral arguments Tuesday. “Hands on Originals declined to print the shirts in question because of the messages on them, not the sexual orientation of the individuals who asked for them.”

But lawyers for the Lexington Human Rights Commission countered that it’s impossible to separate the message from discrimination against a class of protected people. “At what point does this message stop?” said Ed Dove, a lawyer with the Lexington Human Rights Commission. “You can’t separate the message from the discrimination. That’s a red herring.”

Adamson claims to have printed items for gay customers in the past and that he has had gay employees.