Earlier this week a pastor filed a lawsuit against Whole Foods accusing a store employee of putting a homophobic aspersion. Jordan Brown, brought the case to the court on Monday after suffering severe emotional distress upon seeing the slur on the cake he bought to surprise a congregation member. Whole Foods filed countersuit against Brown claiming that he tampered the original cake packaging.
Brown is the Austin founder of the LGBT-inclusive church, Church of Open Doors. He is an openly gay African-American living with his partner for six years. He was raised in a family of church leaders and started preaching since he was 14 years old. He founded the Christian-based church two years ago and is inclusive of LGBT community members.
In a video, he claimed of not noticing the message until he was in his vehicle in spite of Whole Foods acknowledging that "the top of the cake... was visible to Mr. Brown through the clear portion of the packaging," as reported by MSN.
However, Whole Foods released a statement on Tuesday, stating that it's a "fraudulent" claim and plans to proceed with legal action against Brown and Austin Kaplan, his attorney of Kaplan Law Firm PLLC. The giant food retailer said that the accused employee is a LGBTQ herself.
Apart from their statement, the company posted footages coming from store's surveillance camera and was taken around the time the pastor purchased the cake. It shows that Brown wore a red shirt, paying for the cake at the cash register, Inside Edition reports.
Brown claimed that he asked a Whole Foods employee to write "Love Wins" on a blank, pre-frosted cake with blue icing. He paid for the cake and left the store and was only able to check the writings on the cake when about to load it in his car. He saw the writings as "Love Wins F***, according to Fox News.
"For me it was humiliating. Because being a pastor who is openly gay, I've had to deal with this in the past," Brown told FOX Austin.
The two complainants filed lawsuit against each other and we'll never know who says truth until they come face to face in court.
