Scott Garieri, the owner of Garieri Jewelers in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, put up a satirical billboard advertising his goods. He always tries to make his billboards memorable and simple to draw attention to his store.
He succeeded.
“If you’re going to take a knee this season, please have a ring in your hand!” reads the billboard. The accompanying image depicts a man proposing in a football stadium to a woman.
Now that’s funny.
But what one person sees as satire, another sees as racism… especially if that other person is a liberal. Garieri has received the ire of several people. “They called us racist right off the bat,” he said. “That’s the go-to word these days; if you’re nothing else, you’re a racist. I’m not a racist. It was more satirical than anything else.”
But, Mr. Garieri, liberals have precisely zero sense of humor, so you can’t expect them to take a joke as it was intended. The Daily Wire explains just how nasty it’s gotten for the small business owner:
… hundreds of people have left negative Facebook comments and Garieri says people threatened to vomit in his store, urinate on his sidewalks, and someone also told his daughter, who manages the store, to kill herself.
“I’ve had enough,” Garieri said. “I got on [Facebook] and said ‘Look, if you don’t like my billboard, don’t look at it, and if you have a problem with me, don’t shop at my store.’’”
The tolerant left sure is intolerant.
But Garieri isn’t budging. “I am a person of belief. If I believe in something, you’re not going to change my mind just so I get your business. I am a man of my word,” he explained. “I don’t force my beliefs on anyone. I don’t say ‘you’re either a Trump guy or the highway,’ I am an open guy. I can agree to disagree with anybody, but I do not take favor to people threatening my daughter or my family.”
Good. I hope he leaves it up all year… and I hope it drums up a lot of good business for him.
Image Credit: By Cedward Brice (Flickr: 1st Play) [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons