Heath and Deborah Campbell were furious when their local baker in New Jersey refused to decorate a birthday cake with the name of their baby boy.
But ShopRite, in Holland Township, ignored the parents’ pleas after concluding that “Happy Birthday Adolf Hitler” was an inappropriate use of icing sugar.
Adolf Hitler Campbell turned 3 this week and celebrated at a party with his younger sisters Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie (sic – apparently in tribute to Heinrich Himmler) and JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell.
The Campbells ultimately got their cake decorated at a Wal-Mart in Pennsylvania, Deborah Campbell said Tuesday.
His parents insisted that some of the toddler’s best friends were black. Mr Campbell, 35, said that about 12 people attended the birthday party on Sunday, including several children who were of mixed race.
“If we’re so racist, then why would I have them come into my home?” he asked.
A spokeswoman for ShopRite said that this was not the bakery department’s first run in with the Campbells – a similar request was denied two years ago when the shop also refused to daub swastikas on baked goods for the family.
“We reserve the right not to print anything on the cake that we deem to be inappropriate,” Karen Meleta said. “We considered this inappropriate.”
Mrs Campbell, 25, said she phoned in her order last week to the ShopRite, but when she told the bakery department she wanted her son’s name spelled out, she was told to talk to a supervisor, who denied the request.
The angry father, who was wearing a pair of black boots that he claimed were Second World War German artefacts, said: “They need to accept a name. A name’s a name. The kid isn’t going to grow up and do what (Hitler) did.”
He said he named his son after the leader of the Third Reich because he liked the name and because “no one else in the world would have that name.”
“Other kids get their cake,” he complained. “I get a hard time. It’s not fair to my children. How can a name be offensive?”
I realize that this doesn’t fall into the normal lines of this blog, but this is just stupid. (Can I say that on here?)
December 18th, 2008 2:40 am
I believe the chain has every right to refuse providing a service no what the service.
It would seem there was an ulterior motive for the parents to name their child after a monster. Still it is none of our business but the business of the chain is none of their business as well for not wanting to decorate or to glorify past Hitler in the present.
December 18th, 2008 10:30 am
So if they have another child, will they name it Lucifer?
December 18th, 2008 12:19 pm
Swastikas don’t kill people. People WITH SWASTIKAS kill people.
December 18th, 2008 12:33 pm
There is once an African-American police officer named Hitler M. McLeod. He got killed in the line of duty. According to http://www.odmp.org/officer/9075-police-officer-hitler-m.-mcleod
December 18th, 2008 10:36 am
Might as well…