Gay waiter says Trump supporters wrote ‘get out f*g’ on tip
Ashton Bindrup claims that the homophobic slur was written on the back of his $5 tip
A gay waiter in Utah claims that a family of Trump supporters wrote a homophobic message on his cash tip.
Ashton Bindrup, who works in a restaurant in Ogden, Utah, said in a Facebook post that he served an older couple and their middle-aged son, and that all three were wearing “Trump 2020 hats.”
Bindrup claims that after they left, he picked up his $5 tip and found that the customers had written “Get out of America, Fag!” on the back of the bill.
“I can’t imagine hating someone enough to go out of my way to write a slur on the tip I’m going to give them,” he wrote in the Facebook post.
Speaking to FOX13 in Utah, Bindrup said finding the message on the bill was “shocking. It’s not okay.”
He claimed that the message was deliberately written by the family, saying, “They’d asked me for a pen during the meal. They paid with card, but it was all an electric system so there was no receipt…that’s why I thought it was odd when they asked for the pen.”
Bindrup said that he wished the family had made the comment to his face, rather than writing it down, saying he was “not quick to anger or quick to be offended, but I don’t know.”
“You have to think about that kind of hate,” he continued. “You have to wonder, ‘How does someone get to that point?’”
Bindrup jokingly said that, despite the message on the bill, the family “actually tipped me really well.”
“It was only a $22 bill and they gave me a five for it, so it was like a 27 percent tip,” he said.
In his Facebook post, which included photos of the $5 bill with the message on it, Bindrup said he loved Trump supporters, which include his friends and family, “even if I don’t support your candidate.”
But he said that actions like those he was alleging are what “‘liberals’ or ‘Democrats’ see and hear and think about when they meet other Trump supporters.”
“And yes, not all Trump supporters are this way. But that argument also doesn’t matter right now,” he continued. “Today I experienced targeted hate. Hate that I often see in the Trump constituency. And it’s a reality that needs to be faced.”
Bindrup urged Trump supporters to “help check the hate and the anger that you see in other like-minded Republicans, friends, and family” and that “even if you’re against hate, and you truly want great things for America, if you support Donald Trump for President then you have also connected yourself to all his other supporters. This is true whether you accept it or not.”
He concluded: “The next time I meet a Trump supporter I will have a hard time not remembering that five dollar bill I got today. I will have a hard time not immediately worrying about whether or not I’m perceived as ‘gay’ or ‘straight’ (not that it should matter).”
“I hope my words reach out to some of you — my dear family and friends — and I hope that you (at the very least) become more mindful of how you present yourselves and what you say both online and in person,” he added. “Because we all have the ability to effect change in a group for the better, but it’s change that can only happen through example.”
Stories of antigay messages being passed to or left for food servers have proliferated in recent years, including last year when a Florida minister was charged with simple battery after stuffing a receipt with an antigay message written on it down a female restaurant manager’s blouse.
Frederic Sterry Smith refused to tip his waiter prior to the incident, writing on the receipt “if he wasn’t gay.”
In 2017 a North Carolina restaurant fired — and then subsequently rehired — a waiter after he shared a photo of a customer’s receipt with an antigay message on it, in an apparent breach of the restaurant’s privacy policy.
However, in 2013 Dayna Morales made headlines after she allegedly faked an antigay message from a customer. Morales, a lesbian, claimed that a customer wrote, “I am sorry because I cannot tip because I do not agree with your lifestyle,” on their receipt.
The family subsequently showed proof that they had left a tip, and Morales was widely suspected of having faked the message. In addition, she reportedly failed to return or donate more than $3,000 from people who sympathized with her after hearing about the message.
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