UPDATED: One of the owners of a popular Adelaide Hills food business has caused a social media storm after criticising a local newspaper for its “promotion” of “the homosexuality campaign”.

Social media users are threatening to boycott the popular Lobethal Bakery, after a letter to the editor from owner Ruth Trinkle was published in the Mt Barker Courier newspaper yesterday.

A “boycott Lobethal Bakery” Facebook page has been set up on Facebook, and Twitter users have been vowing to avoid the popular bakery after the letter was posted to social media overnight.

The bakery this afternoon released a statement distancing itself from Trinkle’s letter and asserting it was not “homophobic” (scroll down for the full statement).

The Lobethal Bakery has been established for 40 years and has four outlets in the region at Lobethal, Woodside, Stirling and Mt Barker.

Trinkle’s letter criticised the newspaper for “what comes across to me as your active promotion of the homosexuality campaign”.

In recent editions, the newspaper has been covering debates in the Mt Barker, the Adelaide Hills and the Alexandrina councils about whether to display the rainbow flag during the Feast festival.

“The majority of the Hills community is Christian,” she wrote, “and my customers will be offended to read articles promoting gay and lesbians.

“I buy The Courier for my customers to read in our shop. I will stop buying the paper out of protest.

“It would be an entirely different matter if your article was neutral or against.”

When InDaily tried to contact Trinkle for comment, we were informed she was overseas.

In her absence her brother-in-law Peter Trinkle expressed his concern about the potential impact of the letter on their business.

Trinkle said the Lobethal Bakery has had a lot of feedback since the letter was published, both in person and via telephone and social media.

“We have had mainly negative feedback, but some positive,” he said

When asked if he was worried about the impact of Ruth Trinkle’s letter on the family business, he said: “We are reasonably, definitely concerned.” But as to the extent of the impact he said: “We’ll have to wait and see.”

Trinkle said the business was considering how to address any damage the letter might cause, but he was not willing to comment on how that would be achieved.

When asked how the Courier’s reportage promoted homosexuality and what Ruth Trinkle meant by “a homosexuality campaign”, he said: “She’s one individual who expressed her opinion.”

When InDaily asked Trinkle if he thought Ruth regretted writing the letter, he said “I haven’t spoken to Ruth, so you would have to ask her.”

Trinkle said Ruth would be returning from overseas in two and a half weeks.

On Thursday afternoon, the “Boycot (sic) Lobethal Bakery for not supporting equality” Facebook page had garnered more than 600 “likes”, and the number was increasing rapidly.

Also this afternoon, the bakery released a statement on its Facebook page, asserting it was not homophobic.

“The Lobethal Bakery and all affiliated staff wish to make a public declaration that we are not homophobic,” the statement said.

“The Lobethal Bakery would like to clarify that the letter to the editor was not endorsed by the bakery.

“We strongly uphold freedom of speech and will continue to demonstrate that we do not discriminate our customers by providing quality service to all.

“We will also continue to support the Courier, as it plays an important role in our community.”

One of many Tweets criticising the Lobethal Bakery.