Lesbian bakery couple triumphs over homophobe vandals
A married lesbian couple in Nova Scotia who run the Bee’s Knees General Store and Bakery have been targeted by homophobic vandals but they have fought back in the best possible way.
On Christmas Eve married couple Sue Littleton and Candice Zaina, who only recently opened their business and often shared its fledgling progress on social media, found their rainbow flags torn down from their business premises at 498 Main Street, Lawrencetown, Nova Scotia and covered in human poo. They decided to post about it on Facebook.
“It sure was windy last night. So windy that some human feces mysteriously landed on the flags that we found on the ground again this morning.
The flag that our friend Jim put up in solidarity at his shop down the road was also down. Strangely, the wind didn’t seem to do much other damage in the village.
We have cameras now. We called the [Royal Canadian Mounted Police] despite us both having had pretty awful experiences with cops in the past. We will not be intimidated or silenced.
The outpouring of support and love we have experienced is something very beautiful and reinforces for us why it is so important for us to continue to fly the flag.
We had a parent bring their newly out teen into the shop yesterday. They drove nearly an hour to come support us. The parent thanked us for helping them to show their kid that queer joy is possible. THAT is why we do this.
We are full of love. We will continue to spread that love no matter what. That’s what we do.
Again, we invite whoever is doing this to come in for a coffee and a treat. We would be happy to sit at our gathering table with you to talk in a civilized way about why flying this flag is important to us.
Love wins.
Love will always win.”
In response to the news the community of Nova Scotia rallied around the couple and their business, patronizing the store which sells a variety of goods as well as being a bakery and cafe.
The couple continued to post their progress and share how the groundswell of community support following the anonymous attack had had an effect that is no doubt infuriating the nameless homophobe:
“Our amazing community has shown us so much support that we are SOLD OUT. We are out of cheese, butter, milk, coffee cups and more things we aren’t even aware of yet. Haha.
Thank you.
We opened on December 7th and had no clue how much y’all were going to love on us and our magical oat cakes.
We have been blown away and humbled by the love and support we have been shown.
It was so busy today that despite us waking up earlier and doubling our baking, these crumbs are all that are left.
We have closed a little early. Our kids are here and we are going to spend a couple of days with them before we get down to serious bakery renovations.
When we reopen in a couple of weeks we will have so much more capacity for baking great treats for our valley community.
We love you.
We love being here.
This was the best start we could possibly have imagined and we cannot wait to see what 2023 brings.”
Follow Bee’s Knees General Store and Bakery here.
