Karen Lee-Duffell and her wife are speaking out after the Hands on Children’s Museum, a Florida based learning center, denied them the opportunity to renew their family membership simply because they are a same-sex couple.
According to Huffington Post, Duffell spoke out about the injustice with local news KSN saying that they were asked to pay more to renew their membership because they were not renewing a membership according to the company’s policy.
“She says ‘oh wait no, you’re going to have pay an extra ten dollars to add this other mom, you can’t have two moms’ and she points up at the sign, a family membership consists of one mom and one dad,” Lee-Duffell explains.
The Museum's director has released a statement explaining that the rules have been placed as such to avoid others from taking advantage of special rates. Lee-Duffell explains that it feels as if the company is telling her family that they “weren’t a family” and that their family “didn’t matter to them that we were being treated unfairly.”
“I’m not out to destroy anybody,” she continues. “What I would like to see happen is for them to change their policy and make it be equal. It’s not like I couldn’t afford the extra ten dollars, but it’s the principle of the thing.”
Since Lee-Duffell revealed her story a Facebook page seeking the banning of the museum has been created as well as a petition which has garnered over 2,300 signatures.
Same-sex marriage is not recognized in the state of Florida and therefore the business is allowed to create rules however it deems fit, KSN notes.
Lee-Duffell explains that she will take her two daughters to the YMCA, the zoo another other museums where she and her family are welcome.
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