When Alan Couture and Robert McDonald tied the knot they wanted to share their news with the community, so like any happy couple they went down to the local newspaper and asked to place an announcement.
But their local paper, The Waterbury Republican American, refused to print the announcement of their civil union.
The paper’s publisher, William Pape II, told WTHN that “The paper has the right to publish or not publish what they choose.”
Couture and McDonald felt they were unfairly discriminated against by the conservative local paper, so they took their claim to the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunity. The commission heard testimony in the case on Thursday.
In McDonald’s affidavit to the commission he explained that sometime in October 2005 he went to the paper to request a picture of the two be published next to an announcement. “A male agent of the respondent asked us if we had ever read the respondent newspaper.” McDonald responded that he had and, according to affidavit, the agent responded, “that if we read the paper that we should know that it is the Waterbury ‘REPUBLICAN’ and that they would not be printing our pictures.”
Here is McDonald’s and Couture’s affidavits.
Click here to view WTNH Channel 8’s report on the controversy.