A museum that has been accused of being "anti-gay" allegedly called the police on a group of children after the kids delivered a petition demanding for an end to the museum's seemingly discriminatory practices.
Staff at the Hands On Children's Museum in Jacksonville, Fla., are said to have called authorities because the children were "trespassing," according to a new YouTube video.
The museum had come under fire earlier this month for allegedly refusing to allow a same-sex couple to pay the standard price for a family membership. "You can't have two moms," museum employees allegedly told mother Karen Lee-Duffell, according to WTLV.
Many have since taken to the Web to express their frustration at the museum's alleged anti-gay pricing policy. A Facebook page encouraging the boycott of the museum has garnered more than 2,000 "likes," and an online petition calling on the museum to "stop discriminating against families" has more than 3,000 signatures.
Over the weekend, petition organizer Mary Kimrey posted a YouTube video on the petition's page that appears to show a group of children being rebuffed by museum employees when they attempted to deliver the petition.
"Children attempted to deliver a copy of this petition to The Hands On Children's Museum," Kimrey wrote. "The children were not allowed inside and were told they were trespassing. They politely handed the petition to a lady outside, said thank you, and turned around, respecting the museum's rights to turn them away. The museum called the police on the children, but no arrests were made. The friendly Jacksonville police officer made it clear that no other demonstrators, including children, were to attempt to set foot on museum property."
The response to the video has been swift and damning.
The museum has "once again demonstrated its reluctance to be welcoming of same-sex families," wrote Think Progress' Zack Ford on Monday.
"The world's gone mad," wrote a Facebook user in response to the clip. "Congrats kids for standing up for what is right and not spreading hate, you're a credit to your parents."
The Huffington Post's attempts to contact both Kimrey and the museum have thus been unsuccessful. However, the museum director has previously said "memberships are very specific and do not allow substitutions," First Coast News writes.