Anthony Martinez and Jacob Lescenski are the
gay/straight couple from Nevada that went to their high school prom together. Anthony and Jacob are best friends. Apparently, Anthony's aunt was so happy and proud about the event that she decided to buy the couple a cake to celebrate. However, when she went to a local Walmart to order the cake, an employee refused the order because Anthony's aunt wanted the word "gay" on the cake. And, now Walmart officials in Las Vegas are apologizing to Anthony, his aunt, and Jacob. The following video was posted to Teen Vogue about the event.
From JMG:
Jennifer Sandoval, who's the aunt of teen Anthony Martinez, says she's overjoyed at all the positive attention her nephew has gotten after his promposal went viral. His straight best friend, Jacob Lescenski, asked him to prom after not getting another date. Sandoval said she went to her local Walmart store on Saturday, located near Nellis and Las Vegas boulevards, to get him a surprise cake to celebrate before the dance. "It said: 'You're gay, he's straight, you're going to prom, you couldn't have had a better date,'” Sandoval said. Sandoval said the initial associate told her she couldn't write that on the cake because it included the word "gay," and that was against store policy. She then asked to speak with a supervisor. "Supervisor takes my phone, looks at it, and was like stuck for a minute, and she was like, 'OK, I'm sorry, we can't use this'. And then I said, 'I'm going to ask you what I asked her because you're the supervisor. Why can't I use this? I don't understand. It's one word. It's gay,'" Sandoval said.
A spokesman for Walmart says they have no policy against the word "gay" and hope to make it up to Sandoval, who says it's too late now. She left the store with the cake seen above. The refusal was mentioned in the video posted yesterday by Teen Vogue.
The gay/straight best friends have received quite a bit of national attention. They were even on Ellen recently. She gifted each of them with 10K to help with education costs.
(h/t towleroad)
From Towleroad:
Said Ellen:
"If that can't be an example for people in the world to know that we just - that you have a date with your friend who you had a crush on and he's open-minded enough to do this. We have teachers who drove in from Las Vegas, your parents are in the audience. Good for you.
I just wanted to say I know that there are some schools out there that don't support this and wouldn't allow this to happen and it's really a shame because prom is very important to a lot of people."