by Carder
She told me, ‘I am very sorry. We have someone who is not happy with your shirt. Someone is offended by your shirt.’
I said, ‘You know, I wear them all the time.’ She said, ‘You’ll have to leave,’ and I left.
~ Pro-life advocate Mike Amoroso describing how he was told to leave Planet Fitness gym because his pro-life t-shirt was considered to be offensive, WFTV via The Statesman, November 18
Violations will be deleted and you may be banned.
Threats will be immediately reported to authorities.
Following these rules will make everyone's experience visiting JillStanek.com better.
Our volunteer moderators make prudent judgment calls to provide an open forum to discuss these issues. They reserve the right to remove any comment for any reason. Jill's decisions on such moderations are final.
Go to gravatar.com to create your avatar.
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
In fairness, what did the shirt look like? Was it graphic? If so, then I can understand. If it was only a pro-life message, then that member (the complainer) of Planet Fitness needs to get over themselves.
JJ, good question. What was offensive? If it was simply a message contrary to the complainer’s views, then the complainer is not mature enough to handle the world of differing view points outside his or her own.
The shirt said Abortion Kills a Person.
He went the next day with a tshirt that read Pray to End Abortion.
And was asked to take that off too.
I wonder if Gloria would be allowed to wear her I Had an Abortion tshirt to this place.
When you shine a light in the darkness, demons that like to kill babies and the people who are in agreement with the demons and carry them around are going to react.
16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. 20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. 21 But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.” Jn 3:16–21 ESV
That’s pretty heavy…they’re condemned already because they love darkness rather than light.
So all it takes to get kicked out of Planet Fitness is for one person to complain? Seriously, just ONE. These days, there’s probably at least one person offended by literally anything.
this is just another sign of our cultural insanity.
People have a right to state a message, such as on a shirt. And People have a right to be offended… that is, they have a right to passed persona judgments upon the messages that they receive.
But no one has the right to go through life unoffended.
What if the floor manager had told the complainer, “You have no right to be offended. You must enjoy every shirt.”? That would be absurd, just as telling the guy to leave with his pro-life shirt was absurd.
The floor manager should have told the complainer, “That customer likes to wear shirts with pro-life messages. He is peaceful about it, and so we must be tolerant of him. Planet Fitness does not practice intolerance toward our guests.”
How about a Che shirt? Would that be ok?
This was a decision made by Planet Fitness management. Individuals will complain about all kinds of stuff…ask any retail store manager. Someone might say, “I don’t like the color pink because it is associated with a Komen” or “I don’t like Duck Dynasty shirts because they shoot animals” …or whatever… management listens and decides if the complaint is valid and choses to take actions they deem appropriate. Planet Fitness can’t shift responsibility to “gym rules” because they make the rules and chose when to enforce them.
It would be interesting (and probably easy) to get Planet Fitness managers on video selectively enforcing their rules. And if they don’t selectively enforce you can show them asking people not to wear all kinds of popular apparel.
Hmmm … his pro-life t-shirt was “considered to be offensive”. By whom? Did management say that someone had actually complained? This inquiring mind wants to know. ;)
What if a pro-life person had said, “Hey man, I like your shirt.” Could the guy have stayed? This question should be raised.
One thing I’ve learned is that “tolerance” is actually very intolerant in many cases these days – only one POV is allowed. IOW, hypocrisy is alive and well in that camp.
The person who did the complaining about the shirt most likely either had an abortion herself or was complicit in making a woman have one.
The reality came back to bite them in the %#* and now he/she realizes that the message on the shirt is TRUE and now they must own it.