Christian DJ Company Refuses To Play At Gay Man’s Birthday Party
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Ultrasound Deejays in Maryland refused to provide entertainment for a gay man’s birthday party.
Dani Tsakounis tried to hire the company for her brother Tom, who is married to another man; the party was for the couple’s 60-year-old gay roommate.
Michael Lampiris, co-owner of Ultrasound Deejays, told The Washington Post, “I just said, ‘We won’t be able to do it, we’re a Christian organization and it would go against our faith, I’m sorry.'”
Tom reportedly posted about the incident on a neighborhood listserv website, and filed a complaint with the Montgomery County Human Rights Commission.
Since 2001 it has been illegal for businesses “offering goods, services, entertainment” to discriminate against people based on their sexual orientation in Maryland, noted The Washington Post.
However, Lampiris, who said he has lived in Montgomery County for 30 years, claimed he has never heard of the anti-discrimination law, and added:
[B]ut it’s important for us to make a stand. We don’t want to go against the law, but we also sometimes are called to do that if it goes against your faith. To me it would be like a synagogue having to cater to a neo-Nazi party or black DJ having to do a KKK dance.
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arc99 June 15th, 2015 at 8:24 pm
The fact that this paragon of ignorance equates gay people with Klansmen and Nazis should tell you all we need to know about him.
We all know that right wingers will scream bloody murder the instant they are treated the same way they want to treat gay people.
Would love to see what happens when the day comes that a business owner faces down an open carry activist and tells the firearms fetishist that it would violate their deeply held religious beliefs to provide service to anyone who owns or carries a firearm.
tracey marie June 15th, 2015 at 8:44 pm
He can be sued and fined…I hope both things happen to that phobe.
anothertoothpick June 15th, 2015 at 10:21 pm
Suing bigots in the slave states is becoming a cottage industry.
whatthe46 June 15th, 2015 at 11:55 pm
gofundme in the slaves states has become a gofundme LOTTO!
whatthe46 June 15th, 2015 at 8:47 pm
it’s a damn shame that someone had to tell him it’s against the law to discriminate.
burqa June 15th, 2015 at 8:55 pm
OP: “Michael Lampiris, co-owner of Ultrasound Deejays, told The Washington Post, “I just said, ‘We won’t be able to do it, we’re a Christian organization and it would go against our faith, I’m sorry.’ …””
Dumbass.
All he had to do was get the date of the event and then say, “I’m sorry, we’re booked that weekend,” or something and then they don’t have to bother with it and the gal organizing it can find another deejay and everyone goes away happy.
If the woman putting this all together was just trying to be provocative, then shame on her for trying to be a troublemaker.
Really, it’s not so hard for people to get along.
whatthe46 June 15th, 2015 at 9:05 pm
what i was wondering is if that was done to provoke as well. only because it’s a “christian” deejay, and chances are… but, whether or not it was, it’s a damn shame to discriminate and he got called on it. and it’s a blatant lie that he didn’t know it was against the law.
burqa June 15th, 2015 at 11:11 pm
I can easily imagine a bunch of neo-Nazis who look just like the members of Sha-Na-Na (but who can’t sing doo-wop and are dumber than Bowser) deciding it would be funny to order a “Happy birthday Adolf Hitler!” cake from a Jewish bakery and insist they display it like the other cakes, otherwise they’ll sue.
Or what if some anti-abortionists found out some of their librul pro-choice political opponents had a deejay or catering business and insisted they work one the the anti-abortionists events, and they made them sit there for hours while video of abortions rolled right in front of their faces while members of the group proselytized the pro-choicers, threatening to sue if they refused to work the event.
There are plenty of people like that out there.
This took place in Montgomery County, a decidedly liberal, affluent county. Maryland is a pretty liberal state with twice as many Democrats as Republicans. Montgomery County is also close to Northern Virginia and D.C., both of which are dominated by liberals.
So to pick out some Christian outfit that was this out front about how they do their business makes me wonder if this is not some stunt.
tracey marie June 15th, 2015 at 11:45 pm
They are NOT out front, I researched, nowhere on his site or other sites does he say he is a christian organization. He is a lying christian.
zarnon June 15th, 2015 at 11:53 pm
He’s one of those “Convenient Christians”.
whatthe46 June 15th, 2015 at 11:54 pm
aren’t they all! well, that’s an ignorant statement from me. NO they are not ALL! some however, use that, you’re right, as a convenience.
tracey marie June 16th, 2015 at 12:06 am
Exactly!
burqa June 16th, 2015 at 6:05 am
As I said above, I’ll take your word for it in terms of his website or others.
Thanks for digging. Did you find how the woman came across this deejay outfit and did she say why it was so important to have THIS one and not another?
After all, Montgomery County is large with a lot of people and there must be quite a few deejay services up there.
If it was me, when the guy said that, I would probably have told him he was an idiot, hung up and called another one and gone merrily on my way.
Also, as I said above, I am not for hire to just anyone. There are people I won’t work for simply because I don’t like the way they act.
The older I’ve gotten, the more I won’t work for.
For example, there are some who watch a few home improvement shows and think they know construction and try to micromanage my jobsite. When I was younger, sometimes I’d work for one of these clowns because invariably they would make a serious error. One of my fave such case was a pinheaded know-it-all for whom I built and rebuilt 3 kitchen closets 3 different times. I let him lay them out on the floor and every time he forgot to allow for something and screwed the whole thing up. It was only after the third time that he told me how he was trying to make the trim match up in a certain way with what was existing and at that point I corrected his correction and built him what he wanted, but he paid me for all three sets of closets I built, took apart and rebuilt all 3 times.
That guy drove me nuts looking over my shoulder, thinking he knew carpentry and if he called me to work for him I’d tell a white lie if I had to because I’m not going to work for that guy again, period.
tracey marie June 16th, 2015 at 1:13 pm
You came about them because they and 4 others have great reputations.
burqa June 16th, 2015 at 6:18 am
There’s a contractor here in town who occasionally subcontracts work to me. He’s a pretty devout Christian, very serious about it, though not very vocal. (He’s not vocal about much at all, and it can be difficult getting him to clearly state what he wants me to do.)
He doesn’t advertise his faith in his business advertising or on his business cards the way some do. He’s been in business over 40 years and is well known in the community and gets a lot of work either through people in his church or in church activities he participates in like Christmas in April. It’s fairly well known that he’s really into his church and his faith.
I’m not saying these deejays were known like that in their community.Shoot, Montgomery County is packed with people. I’d like to know how they decided on this one deejay service out of, oh, I’d guess there were hundreds of them in Montgomery County or in neighboring jurisdictions close enough to drive to Montgomery County.
I live 60 miles or more from Montgomery County and there are people here who drive that far to go to work. So it’s not as if there is a small selection of deejays to pick from.
So I wonder why they zeroed in on this one and why they stayed after them instead of just calling someone else.
cecilia June 16th, 2015 at 10:18 am
just looking at this DJ site I see they also do Bar/Bat Mitzvah’s
http://www.ultrasoundentertain.com/references.htm
That would give potential customers the notion that maybe these DJ’s are open to working with a variety of people.
same with the music they offer:
http://www.ultrasoundentertain.com/music.htm
So what is a customer to THINK?
cecilia June 16th, 2015 at 10:22 am
ok, the only weirdness I found was on this page:
http://www.ultrasoundentertain.com/policy.htm
was this added AFTER the kerfuffle with the gay couple?
burqa June 16th, 2015 at 8:27 pm
Nice going with what you found. The last one is a dead giveaway. My goodness, I can’t help but imagine they have dress code rules like insisting dresses on the women have a hem no more than three inches above the knee, bras must be worn, NO cleavage; and the gents have to wear belts and keep their shirts tucked in and not have hair long enough to reach their eyes.
cecilia June 16th, 2015 at 11:41 pm
They are most DEFINITELY not people I would care to hire…to weird
tracey marie June 16th, 2015 at 1:12 pm
There are many DJ’s, they have a good reputation and he and his brother decided to do it full time in ’89. They say…we do weddings, birthdays(etc) family fun entertainment, nothing about religion anywhere they advertise. I checked over a dozen sites to see if they were honest, they were not. No one zeroed on them, they have a good reputation, there is no conspiracy or set up, let that idea of yours go.
burqa June 16th, 2015 at 8:46 pm
You make good points and are of course correct that all I was doing was offering idle speculation unsupported by any facts. It may very well be that they took a look at a few deejay sites and tried this one because of their experience over the years doing a variety of gigs and weren’t looking to do anything but book a deejay and got this rude surprise. So it would likewise be sensible to file a complaint with the Human Rights Commission, as they did.
I’ve posted that when I had my company, and today working on my own, there are people I just won’t work for.
The deejays have certain people they won’t work for and want a squeaky clean event (see Cecilias last link, below). I have the same opinion that they were dunces to say what they did, instead of just lying about being booked up or going on vacation or something.
That said, I think the law is a good one and is necessary, even though there have been times I would have broken it because I didn’t want to work for a jerk. Hypothetically, had some white supremacist tried to hire me, they would have been unable to, sorry.
There was an instance once where I did some work for a woman who had a shop in town and we had a nice business relationship and I liked her personally, too.
A month or so after finishing the job, I found out she had a son who was a neo-Nazi and who worked in the shop. She called me to go back there and do some little thing, like adjust some cabinet doors or something. I walked in the door and there was no mistaking this kook. He had a bad bleach job on his hair cut like Hitler’s. Walking in the door, I was already in a loud conversation with my helper (who had no idea of what I was doing) about how the Nazis were a bunch of losers and idiots. I was in mid-sentence when we walked in, to make it sound natural. I went off pretty good and then asked Hitler Jr. to show me where the cabinet was because I was there to repair it. He glared at me with such hate, but I didn’t care. I coulda dropped him with one punch and he probably wouldn’t be getting up. He couldn’t very well ask me to leave, sionce I was there working for his mother, so all he could do was sit there and chow down on the dog doo sandwich I fed him.
tracey marie June 16th, 2015 at 8:48 pm
squeky clean and family oriented does not translate to christian, many people are both and are atheists and many religions.
whatthe46 June 15th, 2015 at 11:53 pm
you’re saying a stunt on the part of the party arrangers? i didn’t know about the dynamics there (i don’t know a lot of stuff) but if that’s the case, you’re saying they knew or should have known? let’s say they did know, this was a “christian” deejay, aren’t “christians” supposed to be loving of all people, regardless? and if they didn’t know, my same theory applies, shouldn’t they be loving of all people? does that then, no matter what the arrangers knew or didn’t know, the deejay was in the right? NOPE! and he should be called out.
burqa June 16th, 2015 at 5:50 am
You’re right, Christians are indeed called to love. We also recognize our flaws and that it is one thing to talk the love game but quite another to practice it.
Though we have ideals, we recognize our inability to completely live up to them, hence the need for a Savior.
We try to love all people, but that’s a mighty tall order for anyone. It’s mighty hard to love some people, y’know?
We’re human, so it is a mistake to presume that all Christians love all people, or even come close. We have organizations and things we do to try to move further down the road, as well as peer pressure and fellow believers to help us when we can’t go any further down what is a pretty long road, if loving all people is at the end.
Me, I’m a Christian and used to deejay and would have had no problem working for these folks or for Republicans, for that matter.
I have also been in business for myself a long time. There are some people I won’t work for because I just don’t like them. I’ve worked for Republicans but I’m not going to work for a bunch of Nazis, sorry.
There have been times where someone who was really rude and brusque in their manners that I turned down when they asked me to do a piece of work for them. Sorry, not everyone gets my work. I have been fortunate to be in a place where I have been able to be selective in who I would work for.
whatthe46 June 16th, 2015 at 10:21 am
as a christian i would think you are a tolerant person and wouldn’t discriminate based on race, creed, culture, sex, etc. that’s entirely different than being tolerant to hatred and bigotry. i’m not a christian, but i do believe. i don’t need to belong to believe. i have morals and i don’t need a church to teach me those morals. i was raised with them, by christians, that loved you for who you were. regardless of race or sexual identity.
Bunya June 15th, 2015 at 11:23 pm
IMO, these guys were pulling the same stunt as the pizza joint in Indiana. He’s hoping he’ll garner enough sympathy from the religious zealots that they’ll start a GoFundMe.com campaign with him, too.
Unfortunately for him, that stunt usually only works once. But if I’m wrong and there’s enough people out there willing to throw $400,000 at him, I’ll be the next “christian” deejay here who won’t serve at gay weddings because it’s “against my deeply-held religious beliefs”.
whatthe46 June 15th, 2015 at 11:38 pm
i thought about that. you are absolutely right. and i’ve actually said it before, you can announce your ignorance and bigotry through these methods or do what that nasty, ignorant “cop” did to the 14 y/o in texas, and it’s pay dirt. gofundme has become the lotto heaven for racist and bigots.
burqa June 16th, 2015 at 6:10 am
Kind of hard to believe the deejay outfit started this as a stunt to raise money. I don’t know what the status of the Montgomery County Human Rights Commission is, but if they swear out charges against the deejay service and it was a scam all along by the deejays, they could be prosecuted for using the law falsely that way.
Taken at face value, it doesn’t seem likely the gays and the deejays would be in cahoots running a fraud scheme….
anothertoothpick June 15th, 2015 at 10:16 pm
And blow a chance from demonstrateing his master race creds?
He would rather burn his gaston flag before he would do that.
tracey marie June 15th, 2015 at 11:39 pm
Nowhere on his site does he say he is a christian organization.
burqa June 16th, 2015 at 5:31 am
I didn’t look but I’ll take your word for it.
If -and I do mean if – they were just trying to start some trouble they could have become aware in a number of ways that this was a conservative Christian outfit. There could have been a story about them in the news. They may do local advertising. They may have heard by word of mouth.
On the other hand, it may just be a case of the woman setting this up simply picking a deejay service out of a phone book white pages listing. I would like to know how she settled on this one and just HAS to have them. Montgomery County is not only predominantly liberal in its voting patterns, it also has quite a few people and I am sure there are many deejay services.
burqa June 16th, 2015 at 5:31 am
I didn’t look but I’ll take your word for it.
If -and I do mean if – they were just trying to start some trouble they could have become aware in a number of ways that this was a conservative Christian outfit. There could have been a story about them in the news. They may do local advertising. They may have heard by word of mouth.
On the other hand, it may just be a case of the woman setting this up simply picking a deejay service out of a phone book white pages listing. I would like to know how she settled on this one and just HAS to have them. Montgomery County is not only predominantly liberal in its voting patterns, it also has quite a few people and I am sure there are many deejay services.
Bunya June 15th, 2015 at 10:04 pm
Gee, that’s too bad. I hear the happy couple was going to tip him $1500.00.
zarnon June 15th, 2015 at 11:55 pm
Or a messiah washing the feet of a prostitute. Yuks….amirite?
CandideThirtythree June 16th, 2015 at 12:45 am
Ultrasound Deejays? Seriously? …a right-wing christian and more than likely republican outfit using the word ultrasound in their name, am I the only one to see the irony?
BigDumbWhiteGuy June 16th, 2015 at 6:16 am
Oh, I just love these comparisons of it being like a synagogue catering to the neo-Nazis or blacks forced to provide services to the KKK. Yes, it’s exactly the same because gays want to wipe Christianity off the face of the earth. /s
burqa June 16th, 2015 at 6:23 am
So that’s where the line is – it’s ok to refuse service to a group that wants to wipe you off the face of the earth?
Is that what the law says, by the way?
As I stated below, there are people I won’t work for just because I don’t like them.
tracey marie June 16th, 2015 at 2:22 pm
Burqa, you missed his snark.
Bunya June 16th, 2015 at 2:01 pm
Ooooh, I see you’ve been listening to Pat Robertson, Franklin Graham or a host of other televangelists who think gay marriage will be the end of this country. And well you should, because even though gays have been around since the beginning of man, God is coming NOW to punish every gay person and gay lover.
Although I never understood why He didn’t punish them way back when he first made them. You’d think it would’ve been more convenient, when only a few roamed the earth.
Mike June 16th, 2015 at 9:22 am
Something else is going on here. Why would gays want a christian DJ outfit for their event…?? Would I be wrong to assume a large part of their service is providing christian themed music…??
The DJ outfit could have simply said they were booked that day and left it at that. Why open themselves up for a lawsuit…??
The whole thing sounds fishy.