Couple Billed for Axed Wedding Ad

A gay couple whose wedding announcement was rejected by The Dallas Morning News has now been billed $1,034 for the ad that never ran.

In Decembe, the News told Mark Reed-Walkup and Dante Walkup that their wedding announcement would not be included in the newspaper's Weddings section since their wedding -- conducted by an officiant in Washington, D.C., through Skype -- was not legally recognized in Texas. Instead, the newspaper offered to put them in the Commitments section, which typically appears on the same page as Weddings.

According to Change.org, Reed-Walkup wrote an e-mail to the newspaper, wanting to know why they were recently issued a bill for the announcement that never ran.

"Does TheDallas Morning News always send out invoices to 'customers' who placed an ad online but it was never published due to the paper's discriminatory policies? We just received an invoice today for our December ad that you banned from your paper because our wedding wasn't 'really' a wedding in your eyes. Unbelievable," Mark wrote.

Publisher and CEO James Moroney wrote back, agreeing that issuing the bill was "not a good practice." He thanked the couple for bringing the matter to his attention and said he would take the matter up with the sales department.