A bar in Cheyenne, Wyoming, is facing a massive online backlash for allegedly selling T-shirts that promoted violence against members of the LGBT community, Monday reports show.
The T-shirts depicting a bearded man taking aim at the viewer with a revolver and reading, “In Wyoming we have a cure for AIDS, we shoot f*ckin’ f*ggots” caused significant disturbance among social media users, The Cheyenne Post reported.
The owner of the bar, Ray Bereziuk, noted that the garment had been sold out, adding that he was not going to reorder the T-shirts, since he is “in the bar business, not the apparel business,” according to The Cheyenne Post. (RELATED: Teen Vogue Editor Resigns Before Officially Starting Job After Staff Uproar Over Past ‘Racist’ And ‘Homophobic Tweets’)
“We are sad to say that we failed to convince a local bar to pull these shirts from circulation,” Wyoming Equality said in their Facebook post Sunday, sharing a photo of the T-shirt. “We hoped that they would choose to stop selling them when they realized the harm it did to the LGBTQ community and those living with AIDS.”
Republican Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon has also decried the bar’s decision to sell T-shirts with such a message.
“It’s incredibly disheartening to learn that any business would offer a product for sale with a message like this,” Gordon said in a statement to the Star-Tribune. “This hurtful rhetoric is not reflective of our state’s values, and does nothing but promote hate and division.”