Gay activists target marriage ban backers

Published 10:50 pm Thursday, November 13, 2008

Protests over last week’s passage of a California ballot proposition banning gay marriage have moved from the streets into some unexpected places — including the Sundance Film Festival, a popular Los Angeles Mexican restaurant and an auto dealership.

Activists who oppose Proposition 8 have targeted for boycotts businesses whose employees or owners contributed money toward its passage. They have pored though campaign contribution databases and then “outed” the donors online.

They also have gone onto a restaurant review Web site to give bad notices to eateries linked to the Yes on 8 movement.

“This one star is for their stance on Prop 8,” one commenter wrote of El Coyote Mexican Cafe. “Enjoy it. … You deserve it.”

Hundreds of protesters converged on El Coyote west of downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday night, and the picketing got so heated that police officers in riot gear had to be called in.

Marjorie Christoffersen, a manager there and a daughter of El Coyote’s owner, contributed $100 to the Yes on 8 campaign.

Christoffersen, who is Mormon, met with protesters, apologized for the contribution and at one point broke down in tears, said Arnoldo Archila, another El Coyote manager. But the activists were not satisfied.

“She had a chance to make nice and blew it. I was almost feeling a tiny bit of sympathy for her. Not no more!!” wrote one poster, who listed competing Mexican restaurants where diners should go instead of El Coyote.

By Thursday, Christoffersen had left town, said Archila, who said El Coyote employees — some of whom are gay — were left staggered by the protests.

“We are all a family,” Archila said. “If this is going to affect the business, it’s going to affect them. There are people who have to feed children and pay mortgages.”

Some activists are now turning their attention to Cinemark, the Texas-based theater chain whose chief executive contributed nearly $10,000 to Yes on 8.

A prolonged protest could cause trouble for the Sundance Film Festival, which is in Park City, Utah, and uses Cinemark screens to show movies during the January event. The state of Utah is a focus of some boycott efforts because the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints marshaled millions of dollars in contributions from its members for the successful campaign.

“Our position is that we have a festival that is essentially three months away,” said Brooks Addicott, a spokeswoman for the Sundance Institute, which runs the festival. “We are committed to having our 25th festival; it’s a celebration for us. We would be incredibly disappointed if people decided not to come because of a boycott.”

Robert Hoehn, vice president of Hoehn Motors in Carlsbad, Calif., gave $25,000 to the Yes on 8 campaign in February. And he called what followed “a really, really ugly experience.”

Hoehn said that most of the campaign against him came before the vote, when he received “dozens and dozens and dozens” of phone calls and his Honda dealership was picketed. Since the proposition passed, he said, he has received a few “vitriolic messages and phone calls.”

Next time, he said he will be “smarter” about how he gives such a donation, possibly in a way that does not require listing his business. “I wouldn’t not do it because of fear,” he said. “I am not ashamed of it, but it has been a very educational experience.”