Amazing Race winner gets lectured by printer

[davidinalameda]

http://www.advocate.com/new_news.asp?ID=15238&sd=02/24/05

Reichen Lehmkuhl, who won $1 million on CBS's The Amazing Race in 2003 along with his former partner, Chip Arndt, is looking for a new printer for the posters he sells, since his previous printer discovered that the beefcake images he was producing depicted "a homosexual."

"I can not continue to help promote a homosexual community, lifestyle, or individual," the printer wrote in a letter dated Tuesday, a copy of which was provided to Advocate.com. "I have decided to give you a 30-day notice, in which you can find another printing company to do this work for you."

The printer, Mark Jones of Vacaville, Calif., wrote that he discovered that Lehmkuhl is gay by visiting his Web site, www.reichen.org. "I learned you are a homosexual, and your web-site is helping to promote a homosexual lifestyle. Not only in adults, but in underage children as well."

it's fine to sell half naked posters as long as the subjects are straight? I must have missed that verse in the bible

[Misunderestimator]

1. HE SHOULD SUE THE PRINTER!!!

This is insane!

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Misunderestimator]

8. For having taken the job, and for having already done work for him...

and for then refusing to work for him based on his admitted discrimination of his homosexuality. Seems like a good reason to me.

And spare ME the histrionic comparison of my "mentality" with Nazism. :eyes:

[OldLeftieLawyer]

11. No

Eternal vigilance really is the price of liberty, and if you're going to try to shut someone down because of his attitudes, you'd best recall how it feels when someone wants to do it to you.

Histrionic? My dear. Really.

[Misunderestimator]

13. Whatever... make whatever you like of this...

I understand that he might not have a legal case, but the fact of the printer's bigotry remains... so excuse the fuck out of me for reacting emotionally to the article. My dear.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

17. One word:

Histrionics.

Your word.

[Misunderestimator]

18. Ha

touche... I guess... What are you doing here anyway? Just here to poke some fun and call me a nazi? What is it that inspired you to be so belittling to me? Just out of curiosity.

[NWHarkness]

9. The Nazis were known for suing people?

That sort of overblown rhetoric does no one any good.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

12. Neither does your tolerance for intolerance

That's where it starts - the irrational rush to try to punish someone because of his beliefs.

So the printer is an intolerant asshole. So what? That's his right. No one was injured, except someone's feelings. The man's beliefs are his own, and I will defend him, because we are all entitled to our beliefs without someone trying to take away our livelihood over them.

There are other printers. The guy should just go find one.

[Misunderestimator]

14. Punish someone because of his beliefs??? His belief to hate homosexuals?

You truly... oh never mind.

[xchrom]

19. so you don't know if the printer broke any laws?

you just want to lean on someone for reacting -- justifiably in my universe -- with anger and outrage at the barbaric behavior of this printer?

you kinda like the printer, huh?

[Bluebear]

21. I wonder if Reichen were Vietnamese and the printer said...

"Sorry I don't print for no 'gook chink Japs'," would you then support a lawsuit?

[shoelace414]

2. man, it;s getting bad out there.

[davidinalameda]

3. Vacaville is pretty much central valley

it's farm country

but yeah--this guy's a nut

[shoelace414]

4. Since I was born in 1970

this must a small inkling of what it was like back in the 60s

[OldLeftieLawyer]

7. Surprise, baby

It still is.

[ronnykmarshall]

22. It's not in the valley.

It's in the 707 which is a Sonoma County.

[JAbuchan08]

5. A lot of it is the world just getting smaller

look at it this way: that's a printer that we're never going to have to visit.

[EC]

10. I looked at the website and it has both

gay and hetro couples, no kids....So? The printers mind is just in the gutter as is with the rest of his ilk...

[Ian David]

15. Good stuff from the article

<snip>
Jones's own Web site, curiously named Let's Be Progressive.com, includes a lengthy page of "Policies and Procedures" that includes a prohibition on materials "that contain, promote, or elude to hate, racism, national origins and ethnic defamations, political subversion, political party subversion, anti-social items, anti-homosexuality, pro-homosexuality, anti-abortion, pro-abortion, government subversion, anti-government, pro-environmental, anti-environmental, pro-animal rights activism, anti-animal rights activism, pro-religious activism, anti-religious activism, pro-God activism, anti-God activism, specific character or specific person defamation and or slander, anti-American, or the like."

Jones's letter to Lehmkuhl ends by suggesting that Reichen "examine yourself from a moral standpoint" and offers "to answer any questions you have regarding the basis of my actions."

Lehmkuhl responded with a letter of his own, to Jones: "Being a very spiritual person myself, I pray to God for you and your family," he wrote. "I pray that you find out who Jesus the Christ really was and that you do not fall to the rhetoric taught by humans long after He lived."

He continued, "You are lucky to never know what it feels like to get a letter like the one you just sent me. You have caused tears and pain to my family, friends, and my community. It hurts me, it hurts the world, and it hurts God."

More:
http://www.advocate.com/new_news.asp?id=15238&sd=02/25/05

Click here to read the full letter from Progressive Ventures.
http://advocate.com/reichen.htm

-------------------------

Progressive Ventures
449 Stoneybrook Lane
Vacaville, CA 95687

Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
[e-mail]


Artist Profile: Mark Jones
Born in Nashville, Tennessee in 1962…and was raised in the United States…almost all of them. Has lived in Tennessee, Texas, Oklahoma, New York, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Florida, Colorado, and California.

Mark has traveled abroad on several occasions for leisure and business to Thailand, Japan, China, Mexico, and Canada, and always took his camera with him.

Mark Jones now lives in Vacaville, California with his wife and 3 children.

----------

And here is Mr. Jones spamming a photography blog:
http://www.betterphoto.com/reviews/reviewItemDetail.asp?reviewItemID=3324


Does the band SoulTaco know the far-right leanings of Mr. Jones?
http://www.soultaco.net/contacts.asp
http://www.soultaco.net/links.asp


http://www.soultaco.net/links.asp

[Ian David]

16. Make sure this gets sent to the "reality TV Show" fan blogs

And don't forget the Usenet groups, too.

[dsc]

20. Given that this is California with a civil rights law

he might have a case. I would consider suing to make him take the business, then withdrawing when I won to find a progressive printer. Why let this bigot make money off him?

[ronnykmarshall]

23. AND he does not respect the FLAG!!

[swimmernsecretsea]

24. Whoa! I'll salute that! But hey...

Dude! You gave me a start! Had to close my browser and reopen it when nobody was around. I hope I don't get a lecture from the MIS department!