Incest T-shirt riles West Virginians

CHARLESTON, W.Va., March 24 (UPI) -- West Virginia's governor is not amused at an Abercrombie & Fitch T-shirt that mocks his state by implying it fosters incest.

The big Ohio clothier recently began selling shirts with the slogan, "It's All Relative in West Virginia" superimposed on an outline of the Appalachian state.

Gov. Bob Wise is outraged by the shirts and has asked Abercrombie to destroy them, the Columbus Dispatch reported Wednesday.

The company dismissed Wise's concerns.

"The T-shirts were meant to be humorous," Abercrombie spokesman Tom Lennox said.

An online poll by the Charleston Daily Mail showed 31 percent of respondents were insulted by the shirts, while 31 percent classified them as unoriginal and unfunny. Twenty-six percent said to lighten up.

"It seems it's almost acceptable to hold residents of what's considered Appalachia up to ridicule," said Bob Kelly, managing editor of the newspaper.

Although the shirts have been selling very well throughout the chain nationally, "quite a few" of the shirts remained in the Abercrombie store at Charleston Town Center, the state's only Abercrombie outlet, according to a clerk, who declined to give his name.