
LGBTIQ couple DENIED engagement ring at jewellery storeAn online jeweller has been accused of LGBTIQ discrimination for refusing to sell engagement rings to a Lesbian couple.
by Mambaonline.com
30-11-2022 17:27
in LGBTQIA
Despite Craig Marks refusing to make Candice van Eck and her partner an engagement ring, the couple later got engaged in Greece with another ring. Photo: PEXELS
Craig Marks, a Cape Town-based online jeweller, has again been accused of LGBTIQ discrimination by refusing to sell engagement rings to same-sex couples because of the owner's Christian beliefs.
--
When quantity surveyor Candice van Eck decided earlier this year to propose to her partner, she started looking for the ideal diamond ring for the special occasion.
We're originally from Joburg and moved to PE and there wasn't much variety around here, van Eck tells MambaOnline. She turned to online retailers and came across the Craig Marks website which offers custom-made fine jewellery .
ALSO READ: Cape Town Pride cruise is set to LAUNCH next year
Finding just what she'd been looking for on the website, she excitedly contacted the company and spoke to owner Craig Mark Quinton. During their conversation about the ring's settings and size, she casually referenced that her partner was a woman.
--
I loved this diamond, it was perfect, says van Eck. However, when she tried to follow up with Quinton about the ring, she found herself being ghosted. I kept sending him emails waiting for the settings with no response. And then I tried to call him. He ignored me. Then I tried off my mom's phone and he answered.
It made me feel that we are not good enough
ALSO READ: Gay pride march in Gqeberha led by learners
--
How it all transpired Van Eck says that Quinton apologised and promised to reply to her via email. When he did email her on 30 March, Van Eck was stunned by his response.
You did mention on the phone that it's an engagement ring for a female partner,
We, unfortunately, do not provide rings for the purposes of engagement or marriage for same sex couples. This is out of faith towards God as he has said between man and woman.
He added that he'd be happy to help her if she was looking for any other kinds of jewellery.
It made me feel that we are not good enough, says Van Eck. It's so brazen and entitled. I actually cried afterwards - it's meant to be something special and he made me feel that I'm doing something completely wrong.
Determined to not allow the disappointment and humiliation sour her engagement, van Eck put the matter aside for the time being. Finding another ring, she and her partner got engaged in July in Greece at sunset overlooking the ocean.
Despite the happy outcome of her proposal, she couldn't let go of the troubling incident. It sat with me and bothered me, and I thought I don't want to let this just go by'. I felt quite upset and disheartened by it.
Where then is the LGBTIQ community to go? Van Eck is now considering lodging a complaint with the SA Human Rights Commission or the Equality Court. She's also been in touch with OUT LGBT Well-being's legal clinic for support.
I've been fortunate to not have experienced a lot of discrimination in my life and this is one of the first big acts towards me. I can only imagine what other people are facing every day. That's why I want to take it further.
Businesses are not allowed to continue to humiliate LGBTIQ people by treating them as second-class citizens
In 2019, Quinton made headlines for refusing to sell an engagement ring to another same-sex couple, telling the women that we follow Christ and do not want to partake in what God calls sin which is a man with a man or woman with a woman.
He and his company faced a significant backlash from the LGBTIQ community and its supporters, with Quinton alleging that he'd been harassed and threatened because of his stance.
Forging an alliance with the conservative religious group, Freedom of Religion South Africa (FOR SA), he essentially argued that his constitutional right to religious freedom superseded the right of LGBTIQ people to equality and protection from discrimination,
Business owners cannot deny services to LGBTIQ people based on their personal religious beliefs, says OUT's Human Rights Manager Lerato Phalakatshela. Their religious beliefs cannot be brought into their professional public capacity as an excuse to discriminate against a protected group.
Phalakatshela added: This company's actions are in violation of the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act [also known as the Equality Act]. We urge the SA Human Rights Commission and the courts to take action to ensure that businesses are not allowed to continue to humiliate LGBTIQ people by treating them as second-class citizens.
MambaOnline contacted Quinton requesting comment and asking if it remained his company's policy to refuse to sell engagement rings to same-sex couples. He had not replied at the time of publishing this article.
By Luiz De Barros
This article was initially published on MAMBAonline.com
How much of a rugby fanatic are you? FIVE easy answers could win you a signed jersey! ENTER HERE!
Most recent headlines
11/12/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, ...
25/11/2025
Tracy Bonareri Onchoke, an investigative journalist from Kenya is the winner of the Thomson Foundation's Young Journalist Award 2025.
The 26-year-old-sele...
25/11/2025
SVG All-Stars: Blayke Scheer, Senior Director, Creative Content, YES NetworkThe Indiana alum has turned storytelling into an artform for more than two decadesBy...
25/11/2025
Op-Ed: With FCC's C-Band Auction on the Horizon, Broadcasters Need Proven, C...
25/11/2025
Analysis: Is Baller League really the future of sport? By Callum McCarthy, Editor-at-Large
Tuesday, November 25, 2025 - 10:10
Print This Story
With KSI on...
25/11/2025
Platinum Whitepaper: The Growth of Broadcast in the World of Major Large Scale E...
25/11/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: SVG Women's Sports WorkshopBy Samantha Gabay
Tuesday, November 25, 2025 - 10:27 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlig...
25/11/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: CacheFly's Matt Levine on the Evolving Role of th...
25/11/2025
Peacock's EA SPORTS Madden NFL Cast Levels Up on Thanksgiving With SkyCam as...
25/11/2025
Mathias Broe attends the 2025 Sundance Film Festival premiere of Sauna at Library Center Theatre. (Photo by Michael Hurcomb/Shutterstock for Sundance Film Fes...
25/11/2025
The best playlists, podcasts, and audiobooks bring a little extra magic to your daily routine. With new features and offerings, Spotify Premium delivers even mo...
25/11/2025
Comprehensive new research confirms what we already knew: Australian music fans love the quality, quantity, and access they have to new and local music on strea...
25/11/2025
Applicable Products
Objectives The purpose of this application note is to give a brief background on 5G (NR) wireless communication an explain the reason a SN...
25/11/2025
Nielsen will now measure both Lionsgate's FAST channel MovieSphere and Movie...
25/11/2025
FREMONT, Calif. Blackmagic Design has announced that The Associated Press (AP) has completed the transition of its global video editing platform to DaVinci Reso...
25/11/2025
Berklees Inaugural Nat King Cole and Natalie Cole Scholarship Awarded to Paris P...
25/11/2025
NEW YORK NFL and college football coverage, the MLB postseason and the new fall broadcast-TV season contributed to major gains for traditional media companies a...
25/11/2025
SAUGERTIES, N.Y. Tower Products, a manufacturer and distributor of pro video and audio equipment here, said President and CEO Jim Veltrie will retire from the c...
25/11/2025
Following last week's disclosure that it had acquired a 8.2% stake in E.W. Scripps, Sinclair has filed papers with the Securities and Exchange Commission pr...
25/11/2025
25 Nov 2025
VEON's QazCode and MeetKai Sign Agreement to Power National LLM...
25/11/2025
UKTV has acquired a high-profile slate of US dramas from Paramount Global Conten...
25/11/2025
A symphony of genius, rivalry and vengeance, boldly reimagined from Peter Shaffe...
25/11/2025
Article courtesy of Cinematography World
Read the article
FilmLight has finalised the prestigious 2025 FilmLight Colour Awards jury and welcomed award-winning...
25/11/2025
Article courtesy of Prensario
Read the article
La serie fue dirigida por Juli n de Tavira, Rodrigo Santos, y David Leche Ruiz, con direcci n de fotograf a a...
25/11/2025
Article courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter
Read the article
The awards, celebr...
25/11/2025
Article courtesy of Televisual
Read the article
Already live in Los Angeles and rolling out in New York and London, Nara gives producers, colourists, conform ...
25/11/2025
Article courtesy of Digital Media World
Read the article
ARTONE post-house in Tokyo is the first facility in Japan to integrate Baselight M, choosing its prec...
25/11/2025
Article courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter
Read the article
Once hidden in post-production suites, the artists who make movies and TV shows look the way they ...
25/11/2025
Article courtesy of Deadline
Read the article
The Brutalist' & Bad Bunny's Nuevayol' Music Video Among 2025 FilmLight Colour Award Winners - Cam...
25/11/2025
Black Forest Labs - the frontier AI research lab developing visual generative AI models - today released the FLUX.2 family of state-of-the-art image generation ...
24/11/2025
HBO's The Shuffle' Reveals Longtime Connection of Sports and Entertainm...
24/11/2025
2025 Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame: Hiroshi Kiriyama, Sony Broadcast (and Ind...
24/11/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: FIFA, NBC Olympics, Fox Sports, CBS Sports, Netflix, NF...
24/11/2025
Case Study: YES Network Streamlines Broadcast Operations with Beam DynamicsBy SVG Staff
Monday, November 24, 2025 - 11:18 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
...
24/11/2025
Platinum White Paper: More of Everything: How Broadcasters are Changing Their Ap...
24/11/2025
Versant Media USA Sports President Matt Hong on How Versant Has Best of Both Wor...
24/11/2025
SVG Sit-Down: NABA Director-General Rebecca Hanson on How FCC's C-Band Aucti...
24/11/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Bolin Technology's Sapan Doshi on the Proliferati...
24/11/2025
Robyn made her long-awaited return to the stage this week, as Spotify and Acne Studios brought friends and top fans together for an unforgettable evening at the...
24/11/2025
After more than two years of redevelopment, FC Barcelona returned to its spiritual home on November 22, hosting Athletic Club in the first La Liga match at the ...
24/11/2025
The L3Harris next-generation imager for NOAA's GeoXO satellite system will c...
24/11/2025
Mumbai - November 24, 2025 - In a first-of-its-kind initiative, JioStar, in coll...
24/11/2025
Disney Achieves Largest Monthly Share Increase, Followed by FOX and Paramount, w...
24/11/2025
ROCHESTER, N.Y. Sinclair said it has elevated Sean LaRose, director of sales at WUHF and partner station WHAM here, to vice president and general manager, effec...
24/11/2025
Back to All News
Chaos and Connection: Meet the Unfiltered Cast of Reality Dati...
24/11/2025
24 Nov 2025
Kyivstar Launches Starlink Direct to Cell Satellite Connectivity in Ukraine Today's Launch Makes Ukraine the First Country in Europe Where Star...
24/11/2025
Editor's note: This post is part of the AI On blog series, which explores the latest techniques and real-world applications of agentic AI, chatbots and copi...
24/11/2025
Ahead of the new ninth series of Dancing with the Stars, kicking off in January 2026, RT and Shinawil have announced the arrival of three new faces to the hit ...
22/11/2025
The deadline for entries for the 2025 Best in Market Awards has been extended to 23:59 PST on November 28, 2025....
22/11/2025
Clear-Com announced the upcoming launch of its 4-Channel HelixNet beltpack, a next-generation advancement of its widely used 2-channel model. The new beltpack...