December 22, 2008, - 12:32 pm
Hell Hath No Fury . . .: Are You on the Gay McCarthyist Blacklist, er . . . Pinklist?
By Debbie Schlussel
The trite, but true adage, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” definitely applies to the scorned men who think and act like they’re women.
As I noted several months ago before Proposition 8 won at the ballot box, gays were already harassing and boycotting businesses whose owners contributed to the Prop 8 campaign.
Now, that California voters confirmed that they believe marriage is between one man and one woman, gays are going full steam ahead in their boycott tactics. Some of the same businesses I told you about before on the list. Others are new. There are even blacklists of Hollywood studio execs who gave to Prop 8. The shocker to me is that any Hollywoodites supported Prop 8.
One other thing, in honor of gays, I think in this case, it should be a pinklist, not a blacklist:
After losing on Election Day, some supporters of gay marriage are using economic boycotts and Internet lists to focus ire on the financial backers of Proposition 8.
Some on the receiving end say the tactic amounts to a blacklist, a term that conjures memories of Hollywood’s refusal to hire screenwriters and others identified as communists in the late 1940s and 1950s.
“I just hate being pigeonholed as a hate monger or bigot,” says Robert Hoehn, who contributed $25,000 to the campaign for Prop 8, which amended California’s Constitution to exclude same-sex marriage. “I have friends in the gay community, and I don’t think any of them would say that.”
Hoehn has seen protesters outside his Carlsbad, Calif., car dealerships, his name and business have appeared on websites publicizing donors, and he has received “the most vitriolic kinds of e-mails, letters and phone calls.”
“I want to make it a little hot for these people,” says Fred Karger, a retired Los Angeles political consultant who started the group and website called Californians Against Hate.
Small as well as large donors have felt heat:
* El Coyote, a Mexican restaurant in Los Angeles since 1931, has seen fewer diners and been picketed over a $100 contribution by a manager and member of the owning family. Marjorie Christoffersen told The Los Angeles Times, “I’ve almost had a nervous breakdown.”
* San Diego developer Doug Manchester, who donated $125,000 to put Prop 8 on the ballot, has seen a boycott against hotels he owns, including the Manchester Grand Hyatt on San Diego Bay. Manchester did not return calls seeking comment. Sonja Eddings Brown, spokeswoman for the Protect Marriage coalition, which supports Prop 8, said Manchester’s hotel “has lost several national conventions and conferences.”
* A-1 Self Storage, with 30 locations across California, has also been targeted by Karger’s group. Owner Terry Caster and family members donated $693,000.
Caster did not return calls but has a recording on his phone defending the contribution and Prop 8. “The homosexual community is trying to change something that has been practiced since the start of our great country,” he says, referring to marriage. “I simply exercise my right to support that which I believe in.”
Brown says she has received calls from small business owners in Hollywood and West Hollywood who have lost customers because of their donations. She said she has seen printed lists that name Hollywood studio employees who gave to the cause, an action that “replicates that feel” of blacklists of movie-industry figures who many in Hollywood to this day believe were prevented from earning a living because of their politics.
Ah, the tolerance of the gay community. So much for “diversity.” They lost at the ballot box. They were soundly defeated. And they simply refuse to accept it.
I hope that if you live in California, you will patronize these businesses now in peril. As if our economy isn’t bad enough, gays want to make it worse.
Absolutely right deb! How dare they boycott stores in this economy! Now, if you don’t mind, I have to go back to boycotting stores that don’t say Merry Christmas.
chitown85 on December 22, 2008 at 1:06 pm