Indecent Proposal?

             Scott Garieri is the owner of a small, private business, Garieri Jewelers in Sturbridge, Massachusetts. He recently put up a billboard showing a man proposing to his girlfriend on a football field. The ad reads: “If you’re going to take a knee this season, please have a ring in your hand.” A cute and clever reference to the time-honored tradition of a man taking a knee to propose to his sweetheart, right? An act often performed at a sporting venue. A natural hook for selling jewelry, no?

             Nothing can be that simple to the leftist mind.

 Turns out, the billboard has sent some progressives into a violent rage of righteous indignation. The Reverend Laura Everett, executive director of the Massachusetts Council of Churches, posted a picture of the billboard on Facebook and Twitter. Everett commented on her tweet, stating: “It’s stunning to flip the NFL BLM protests, and turn it into a racist marketing opportunity. Poor form @GarieriJewelers.” The store began receiving negative comments on social media shortly after Everett’s posts.

Garieri said he thought the message was “a good play of words,” and that he didn’t mean any harm. Well, guess what, Scott? You are not allowed to think that. The ignorant, virtue-signaling lemmings, however, do mean you harm. Critics of the sign have posted messages on (anti-)social media threatening to urinate on the store’s walkways and vomit on its showcases, among other vile acts. One told Garieri’s daughter, Alexandria O’Brien, the store’s manager, to kill herself.

Perhaps the critics were upset that a man was shown proposing to a woman. They certainly would have been less offended if it was a male proposing to a male or a female asking for the hand of another female. Maybe Garieri should have depicted a polyamorous gender-questioning couple proposing to a bigender person and a golden retriever.

Calling the billboard “racist” is preposterous. Calling the response to it “disgusting” is an understatement.