The Eagle’s Nest bar in Cheyenne, Wyoming has come under fire after the owner sold homophobic t-shirts advocating for the murder of gay people.
Per the Washington Post, the t-shirts in question were circulating on Facebook, which ultimately led to Sara Burlingame of Wyoming Equality to approach the owner of the bar, Raymond Bereziuk. While Burlingame was initially unsuccessful in getting Bereziuk to stop selling the t-shirts, he’s since claimed that he’s sold out of stock.
"We are sad to say that we failed to convince a local bar to pull these shirts from circulation," said Wyoming Equality in a statement regarding the sale of the t-shirts. "We hoped that they would choose to stop selling them when they realized the harm it did to the LGBTQ community and those living with AIDS."
Bereziuk told the Cheyenne Post on Monday that he does not plan to sell more shirts, which he first started selling after the murder of 21-year-old gay man Matthew Shepard. In 1998, Shepard was beaten, robbed, and then tied to a barbed-wire fence and left to die. His murder prompted state and federal lawmakers to pass hate-crime bills.
The t-shirts that were sold at the Eagle’s Nest bar read, “In Wyoming, we have a cure for AIDS, we shoot fuckin’ f*****s.” A bearded man in a biker jacket is also featured on the t-shirt, pointing a gun. LGBTQ advocacy group Wyoming Equality, of which Burlingame is an executive, did not name the business initially since they “did not want them to gain notoriety.” The bar was later identified, and now the Human Rights Campaign are working with Wyoming Equality to hold the establishment and Bereziuk responsible for the sale of the offensive and bigoted t-shirts.
Due to the attention the t-shirts have gotten, Burlingame told NBC News that some state legislators are now understanding why further hate crime laws are needed in Wyoming. “As we make this pitch to the global community to come and invest in us, there’s a piece of us that is just so cankering and that we refuse to look at, we refuse to address — and it’s not going to go away," she added.
