An employee of a popular restaurant became a target of gay-rights supporters after it was revealed she gave a $100 donation to support the proposition. Turned out that although she loves gay people “like everyone else,” she’s a Mormon and had to do what the church dictated.
No, honey, you didn’t. You could have made a decision on this independent of church decrees and done something good for your dear friends and fellow employees who have been fighting for such a simple little thing as legal marriage for a long long time.
She never advertised her politics or religion in the restaurant, but last month her donation showed up on lists of “for” and “against” donors. And El Coyote became a target.
A boycott was organized on the Internet, with activists trashing El Coyote on restaurant review sites. Then came throngs of protesters, some of them shouting “shame on you” at customers. The police arrived in riot gear one night to quell the angry mob.
The mob left, but so did the customers.
Sections of the restaurant have been closed, a manager told me Friday during a very quiet lunch hour. Some of the 89 employees, many of them gay, have had their hours cut, and layoffs are looming. And Christoffersen, who has taken a voluntary leave of absence, is wondering whether she’ll ever again be able to work at the restaurant, which opened in 1931 (at 1st and La Brea) and is owned by her 92-year-old mother.
“It’s been so hard,” she said, breaking down again.
I think it’s been harder for the other side, sweet cheeks, and you’ve helped to make it harder still. I’m sorry your restaurant winds up being in the war zone on this issue, but don’t be at all surprised by it. It’s better they know what side you’re on. Those who are upset over this have a right to feel betrayed.
It’s also affecting Hollywood in a way I never even thought about. Boycotts of theaters, supporters getting pushed to resign — even top dudes, like Los Angeles Film Festival Director, Richard Raddon. He’s a Mormon and he donated $1,500 to support the marriage ban. The Washington Times writer compares these events to the anti-communism days of McCarthyism and how Hollywood reacted then.
Gay activists are correct that they have every right to boycott theaters or businesses that offend them. But that’s exactly the right that anti-communists claimed in the middle of the last century, and Hollywood has spent more than 50 years condemning this as an attack on hallowed free speech. The hypocrisy speaks for itself.
A short musical produced by Marc Shaiman (of “Hairspray” fame, apparently. I don’t follow this stuff.) has been making the YouTube rounds in some circles (atheist ones included) where Jack Black plays Jesus and claims the world got the everything wrong about homosexuality. I haven’t bothered to watch it. I don’t really care for Jack Black. The writer of this piece doesn’t think much of it for another reason:
This phony-baloney Jesus seems to be quoting directly from an Obama speech in 2006 that suggested Christian conservatives weren’t reading their Leviticus. But neither Mr. Obama nor Mr. Shaiman will admit in the Bible there is also St. Peter’s vision in the Acts of the Apostles, where he’s told to abandon the idea of clean and unclean foods.
Mr. Shaiman also has his Bible-trashing Jesus sing that the Bible says, “You can stone your wife, or sell your daughter into slavery.” This is also a common pro-gay argument, as if Christians today are all recognized to be active in wife-stoning and daughter-enslaving. When the Christians say they ignore those verses, Jesus scolds, “it seems to me you pick and choose. … Well, then, choose love instead of hate. Besides your nation was built on separation of church and state.”
Only someone utterly ignorant would make a video where Jesus descends in a vision to humanity only to sound like a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union.
I don’t know why Christians poke around in the Old Testament anyway. Wasn’t the New Testament written because the Old one wasn’t going to be as relevant to the new faith? Why does anyone even read Leviticus unless it’s for a laugh? Look at the silly things these people believed were important…
Hollywood loves to pose as the trendy defender of civil liberties, but clearly no one who wants to remain employed would ever dare to make a musical mockery of Mr. Shaiman and his blacklisting coalitions. No one has forgotten the ruined career of former “Grey’s Anatomy” star Isaiah Washington for ingloriously using six-letter epithet for homosexuals on a private set. From now on, no one in entertainment will feel safe making a donation as measly as $100 to a conservative defense-of-marriage campaign.
Something else I never heard about. Does anyone else wonder how “faggot” went from meaning a bundle of sticks to something obscene? Ah, the weird world of words.
I don’t think I’ve got anything else to add here. It really turned out to be a divisive bit of legislature, didn’t it.
One Minion's Opinion 
Hear, hear! The LAT piece on poor widdle Margie Christofferson had steam coming out my ears all day. Nobody wants to go to your restaurant now that they know you’re a fundamentalist bigot? OH NOES!
At least now she knows how it feels to lose something: http://urbzen.com/2008/12/15/tacos-with-a-side-of-bigotry/
Actually, I would be against essentially raiding someone’s restaurant just because they donated money to the Prop 8 campaign. A boycott is one thing, but a mob? That’s going a bit too far for me.