Update below: A gay couple who recently got engaged says that the St. Louis Post-Dispatch is intentionally rejecting the engagement announcement they want to run in print, because they have some sort of unwritten policy against same-sex couples. The accusation of the duo Kurt Lee and Kyle Hanten -- engaged in February -- spread on Facebook today ,and angry readers went to the paper's Facebook page to express their outrage.
A spokeswoman with the P-D, however, tells Daily RFT that the paper has absolutely no policy against same-sex couple's engagement and wedding announcements and has posted them many times before. She also sends us a 2002 article the paper wrote about itself on this issue.
"I'm really pissed off," Hanten, 24, tells us. "There's nothing X-rated about it, even if the marriage may not be legal."
The comments section on the P-D Facebook page is now filled with angry readers demanding to know why the paper might have some policy that would block a same-sex couple from making the same kind of announcement that straight couples can make.
In response to one of the angry posts from Hanten himself, the official Post-Dispatch Facebook account responded:
Tracy Rouch, a spokeswoman for the P-D, adds, "We've been doing this for years.... Everybody is accepted no matter what."
She says the policy works such that couples submit them online and then they eventually run in print, all free of charge.
Hanten is not convinced.
He says it's clear to him that they have a rule against posting these announcements from gay couples and that now they are telling them they can put it online -- but that's not enough.
"They rejected it in the paper," he says. "We want it in the paper."
Here's the announcement he posted today that has gotten nearly 100 Facebook shares.
And this one on the Post-Dispatch page:
Continue for more from the couple and the P-D's response.
