El Coyote manager steps down over Prop 8

Corporate law is awesome

Christoffersen was also resigning as a member of El Coyote's board of directors.

Depending upon how much business her actions lost the restaurant, the board would be within their rights to fire her dumb ass. Welcome to the law of cause and effect, Margie. Enjoy your stay, and good riddance.

I hope Marjorie finds comfort in her mormon faith. Maybe one of her friends from relief society will give her a job in a publicly anti-gay establishment where she'll be safe and insulated from the consequences of her actions.

God save ornery old queens! - kevinchi

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by: Keori @ Mon Dec 08, 2008 at 15:25:17 PM CST

I agree...

Margie, welcome to the world of extended consequences of living in a world where it's okay to vote away the rights of a small minority of citizens....it effects everybody...discrimination.  Whether this was her decision or the Board's...the result is she's out.

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by: Karen in Kalifornia @ Mon Dec 08, 2008 at 15:36:50 PM CST

[ Parent ]

this is puzzling

 This is as puzzling as Marjorie's behavior at the meeting that was called.
 I don't know if there was any pressure for this to happen. As far as I know, there hasn't been and there were still people at the meeting who said they'd remain loyal. This is extreme behavior on her part. As were, what I felt...were histrionics at the meeting.

 She was so emotional, she had to be supported by her three grown children. I mean really.
It would have been cowardly had she been facing a lynch mob.
Which SHE WASN'T.

 The room was full of essentially respectful, but questioning patronage. And press.
Something STINKS about this. It really does.

 I'm going to call the restaurant and then I'm calling our friends like Tim Kincaid who was also there and figure this out.

  Considering that the rallies were made to look like riots in the conservative press, I think this action on Marjorie's part is a symptom of the same agenda.

    Exaggeration of the effect and of the feeling out there from the gay community.

 I personally don't think she had to go THAT far. The least she could have done, was just TALK to us, get to understand and realize the damage done to gay people out there with no legal protections for THEIR relationships.

That's ALL she had to do. She was unwilling to do that. But willing to resign?!

Seriously people, does that make sense to you?

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by: Regan DuCasse @ Mon Dec 08, 2008 at 15:27:46 PM CST

Martyrdom makes a great story in mormon culture

It'll give her street cred when she cries buckets of tears in sacrament meeting and relief society while "bearing her testimony" of how sanctified it is to vote away people's human rights. Mindless cow.

Meanwhile, our answer to this needs to be to tell Bill O'Reilly to eat our collective ass. If the AFA has the 1st Amendment right to boycott Disney and McDonald's over "Gay Day" and employee equal protection policies, we have the 1st Amendment right to boycott businesses whose employees accept our patronage and then openly use that revenue in smear campaigns against us. And those businesses' boards of directors have the right under the Unified Commercial Code to terminate the employment of people whose decisions have such a bad economic outcome.

Ain't the law a bitch when it cuts both ways?

God save ornery old queens! - kevinchi

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by: Keori @ Mon Dec 08, 2008 at 16:26:08 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Uh... RU an Ex-mo, Keori?

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by: GraciesDaddy @ Wed Dec 10, 2008 at 04:21:38 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Oh, I hadn't thought of that...

 Good point. When someone's actions cost a business valuable patronage...then yeah, they deserve to have to resign, or get fired.

  Of course, we all know who will blow this into an attack on a poor, hapless and helpless business owner just doing what she has a right to, and doing what her church believes is important to do.

  All those married gay couples were doing what they had a right to do, and what they SHOULD be doing and what would be expected of them, were they heterosexual.

 So, there are no winners and haven't been since the war on gay people began and wherever it is.

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by: Regan DuCasse @ Mon Dec 08, 2008 at 15:35:11 PM CST

Coyote

Whether or not she's gone, will it change the fact that the restaurant will still have to donate to the Mormons?

I'm sure this resignation will turn into "homosexuals carried Marjorie out of the restaurant, and thrown her onto a stack of burning copies of the Book Of Mormon".  Or whichever way Bill O'Reilly choses to hallucinate this week.

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by: bluegrassfool @ Mon Dec 08, 2008 at 15:45:22 PM CST

From what I've read she was the only Mormon associated with the restaurant

What I'd like to know is how much their business was impacted.

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by: Sikes @ Mon Dec 08, 2008 at 15:57:38 PM CST

[ Parent ]

I thought she ...

... owned the restaurant. Is that wrong? Does she still own the restaurant? And if so, why does anyone think she will stop donating to causes to which her church tells her to donate?

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by: rx7ward @ Tue Dec 09, 2008 at 08:21:21 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Family Owned since 1931

Margie Christoffersen's mother, Blanche March owns the restaurant, although Margie is reportedly the only Mormon.  So, even if Margie leaves the restaurant I'm sure Margie will still benefits from it's profits.  Something like paid administrative leave.

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by: Guy in SF @ Tue Dec 09, 2008 at 13:10:27 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Good

Oh well, I can just hear the religious right now - "the gay Mafia forced another person out of their job."

It doesn't bother me. Their talk would be jealousy. Their boycotts don't seem to work while ours do.

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by: Alvin McEwen @ Mon Dec 08, 2008 at 16:20:48 PM CST

Unclear on the concept...

Christoffersen tried to explain her donation did not have to do with animus for gay and lesbian people, but was instead tied to her Mormon faith.

Voting to remove people's rights probably isn't the most effective way to demonstrate lack of "animus".

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by: M @ Mon Dec 08, 2008 at 16:26:36 PM CST

She gave because she was ordered to give by her bishop and stake president

As a prominent business woman, there would have been a lot of pressure put on her to obey the orders of the church in this matter, with the additional pressure of being a woman in an exceedingly patriarchal religious culture. I expect that is why she made the donation. On the other hand, $100 is far smaller than someone like her could have given.

I think she was put in the very untenable situation of either obeying her church or doing the right thing. Assuming she was born or even married into the LDS, at her current age she was probably too deep to tell them to bugger off.

At least, that is how I want to interpret this.  

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même merde.

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by: TechBear @ Mon Dec 08, 2008 at 16:56:02 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Well, she consciously CHOSE to be a member of a "religious" organization

which openly persecutes the rights of other American citizens.

Perhaps we should start taking a page from the wingnut handbook and remind the "religious" that they are always free to choose another faith.

They certainly do it openly and in number when their own church won't marry the person they choose to love. . .

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by: kevinbgoode @ Mon Dec 08, 2008 at 18:49:37 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Funny, not all mormons had that issue

Plenty of them - my parents, for example - realized that what they were being told to do was wrong and were quite willing to tell their bishop and stake president to go fuck themselves. Something about "free agency" and "rendering unto Caesar" and "D&C 134" and "love one another."

God save ornery old queens! - kevinchi

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by: Keori @ Mon Dec 08, 2008 at 19:01:21 PM CST

[ Parent ]

If they're really, literally ORDERING people to donate to a political campaign

I'm not sure, but I think there may be some kind of legal issue there.

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by: mcc @ Mon Dec 08, 2008 at 20:54:09 PM CST

[ Parent ]

"They made me do it!"

Not a defense for my pre-schooler, not a defense for her.
I'm done accepting religion or generation or geography as an excuse for doing the wrong thing.  Wrote obedience to a bigoted leader is just as bad as the worst of it.  Remember "all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."  If not outright animus, then it was definitely throwing gays under the bus to save herself some problems.  I'd rather it was animus than cowardice.  Damn it, if you're going to hurt me, mean it!

Yes we can!

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by: bluegirlbb @ Mon Dec 08, 2008 at 17:20:55 PM CST

[ Parent ]

i just checked it out

 I called over there, and she's not her position yet. She's still deciding.
But their business IS down by 30% and falling.

 I have expressed the desire to talk to Marjie, person to person. I want her to understand something.
This reminds me of the white business people in South Central LA before the '65 riots.
Their businesses were lucrative, but they didn't live in the area, their children didn't go to school with black kids, nor did black people visit their homes as peers and friends.

 And they would consistently vote for any laws that would keep things that way.
But I'm sure, in any way expedient...they thought of the black people they had to be in contact with 'friends'.
 This sort of mental disconnect is typical of an insular life that hasn't had to confront much of consequence that occurs TO the relevant minority.

 Marjie said she considered gay people her friends. But when a law is passed that DIRECTLY affects gay people's lives and ability to function LEGALLY in the same way as she can, she broke a fundamental rule of grace: she placed them at a level less than hers, a more vulnerable place and the law itself is reflective of making gay people subject to the whims of a majority already hostile to them.

    The tradition of humiliation and discrimination and lack of power to be protected from it, should have been a concern for her 'friends'.
She didn't try to talk to anyone gay about it. She didn't allow herself to  know what the impact might be to THEIR lives.

Only pressure from her church would make me think that he donation and vote, was not a confidential act.
Why would THEY care what she donates to and votes for politically unless it's been discussed and planned for in her church?

 Because of my support of gay equality, I've lost people along the way, who in retrospect showed themselves to be phony and intractably stupid in their thinking.

    I won't write Marji off. I really will try and hear her out and see what we can do.
I also refuse to allow anyone the concession that THEY can write off all gay people because of a few isolated incidents. Even if it compromised their professional situation for a bit.
   If it doesn't take much to make someone do that, they really weren't so friendly, or concerned in the first place.

  Friends are the people in your life who get the benefit of the doubt, and you ask first before you pass judgement on them.

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by: Regan DuCasse @ Mon Dec 08, 2008 at 18:06:25 PM CST

You give her too much credit

If Margie considered gay people her friends, she could have spoken up on their behalf, or at least not gone out of her way to hurt them. She said she didn't mean to hurt anyone. Tough shit for Margie. This is 2008, and the "some of of my best friends" argument doesn't cut it anymore. "They made me do it" isn't an excuse. She knowingly contributed to an effort to strip innocent, law-abiding citizens of their civil rights for no better reason than that her church said so. No one from her ward or stake held a gun to her head while she wrote the check. She did it of her own free will. Now she gets to reap the real-world consequences of her actions right alongside the queers she purposefully hurt.

Friends are the people in your life who stick up for you. Friends don't vote each others' human rights away. Religious bigots don't get the benefit of the doubt, and Prop 8 supporters have shown quite clearly where they stand.

God save ornery old queens! - kevinchi

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by: Keori @ Mon Dec 08, 2008 at 19:12:04 PM CST

[ Parent ]

I hope she's learned a lesson

Has to be the worst 100 bucks she ever spent.

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by: Naperville Mom @ Mon Dec 08, 2008 at 18:21:33 PM CST

Dumbest use of $100 ever, anyway

because in her financial position, compared to a lot of LDS members who gave more, it made her look like she didn't REALLY support Prop 8 to them, and showed her as a bigot who does whatever her bishop says, to her customers.

'Pulling a Margie' should become the descriptive phrase for 'trying to keep in good with both sides in a pitched battle over values, in a boneheaded fashion that pisses off both gays and gay-haters'.

Sadly, many nationally known Democrats will be happy to provide higher-profile examples of this behavior, but I think Margie deserves a moment of Rick Santorum-style fame.

She'd have been better off betting the money on Falling Star to place in the 4th race at Del Mar, at least she'd have had the afternoon outside for it.

But wait, there's more!

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by: PhoenixRising @ Mon Dec 08, 2008 at 21:35:12 PM CST

[ Parent ]

'PULLING a MARGIE'...yep..

Isn't that what the leader of the New York legislature just did...handshaking away any chance of a SSM bill this year for a vote for him as leader!... Does he think no one will notice or remember??

It's the Hammer of JUSTICE,
It's the Bell of FREEDOM,
It's the Song about LOVE between,
my Brothers and my Sisters
...All over this Land.

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by: Orion45 @ Mon Dec 08, 2008 at 23:06:13 PM CST

[ Parent ]

You mean

Sen. Malcolm Smith (D) who wants to be head of the senate or pentacostal minister elected senator Diaz Sr. and the 2 other democrats using political blackmail against Smith?

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by: Karen in Kalifornia @ Tue Dec 09, 2008 at 13:47:36 PM CST

[ Parent ]

oops, I just realized

 that my last statement looked like it was in defense of Marjie.
What I was describing was something that SHE should have done before making the moves she did.

I am NOT defending her whatsoever. I'm going to keep a door open.

Sorry for the misunderstanding.

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by: Regan DuCasse @ Mon Dec 08, 2008 at 20:33:51 PM CST

*hands a SH*TTY smelling police walki talki as a parting gift

What have you done today, to make ya feel PROUD?


~Heather Small

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by: peteyPornpig @ Mon Dec 08, 2008 at 22:43:11 PM CST

hands Marjorie...text disappeared as loading

What have you done today, to make ya feel PROUD?


~Heather Small

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by: peteyPornpig @ Mon Dec 08, 2008 at 22:44:14 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Special Rights to Boycott,

  The right gave up on places of businesses being boycotted by the LGBT.  They jumped all over it at first because they were looking for anything to smear us with.  The religious right didn't do their homework to find out the WHY we targeted certain places.

 They saw they were claiming to have the "Special Rights" to Boycott.  It made them look like the complete idiots they are.  HYPOCRITS, is more like it.

 Margie is on a slow boat to nowhere.  The LGBT will not visit her place of business while she is there and I am sure no church goers and yes on 8 supporters decided to come to the rescue by eating and drinking there.

 $100.00 didn't buy her the keys to the kingdom.  She is now out of a job and alone, as well as out a 100 bucks, and has a long time to think.

If I make sense? it was quite by accident.

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by: HappyCat @ Tue Dec 09, 2008 at 01:12:01 AM CST

Another Victim Falls at the Hands of the LGBT

Marjorie is clearly, clearly, just one more of the millions of victimized Americans, all of which are now unemployed and afraid to pray due to the worldwide terror threat of the H'Agenda and its evil LGBT followers, which are, at this very moment, seeking to purchase arms from the Chinese in order to infiltrate Mormon and Catholic churches with insurgents aimed at destroying Jesus Christ through systematic violence and open warfare.

These demagogue terrorists of the LGBT movement must be found (or can they be found everywhere???)! Who forced tortured Marjorie, Scott Eckern, and Rich Raddon into resigning? Which pink-clad sodomite Satan-loving hater of all things American held the knife or gun to the throats of these good, God-fearing people while they penned their surely coerced-under-threat-of-death resignations? These atrocities are blatantly un-American, so un-American it's like the opposite of American, the exact opposite. I don't even know if LGBT people can even be called Americans after what happened to Marjorie and the countless others who have suffered under this, the greatest oppressive movement in 1,700 years.

Think the Holocaust was bad? If these LGBT folk get their way, it'll be like WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq all rolled into one. You doubters out there need to be informed on the massive frontline battle that's already started over the Soul of the USA. In Our Great American language, all the bad words start with the letter "H": Hobo, Homeless, Hypocrisy, Halitosis, HOMOSEXUAL, Hell. God made language and His Mighty Message is super crystal clear. Don't read the Bible? Then read Merriam Webster's Dictionary -it's all the proof you'll need.

I, for one, will be praying for Marjorie, but more importantly, I'll be praying for my country, a country that has lost its way and allows people to protest, to make signs saying the most horrible things ("No more mister nice gay" is right!), and to speak out against the Christian majority that wrote the Constitution of our blessed nation. Shameful.

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by: lo_pan @ Tue Dec 09, 2008 at 06:57:18 AM CST

Wha?

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by: Sikes @ Tue Dec 09, 2008 at 09:52:16 AM CST

[ Parent ]

While you're at it

maybe you should pray for a few functioning brain cells.

I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights.  -Archbishop Desmond Tutu

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by: QScribe @ Tue Dec 09, 2008 at 09:59:42 AM CST

[ Parent ]

In Our Great American language, all the bad words start with the letter "H"

Heaven, happiness, harmony, home, helping, hero, humanity, heart...  

Oh...I guess those words aren't in your dictionary, huh?

I've got to hand it to you.  This post is the most thrillingly stupid thing I've read in years, not just on the Blend but anywhere.  The level of venom is matched only by the profound ignorance--of human sexuality, of American history, of virtually everything.  You make Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee seem deep.  While you're cavorting in the dictionary's "H" section, maybe you should try to grasp the meaning of hubris.

I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights.  -Archbishop Desmond Tutu

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by: QScribe @ Tue Dec 09, 2008 at 10:19:54 AM CST

[ Parent ]

GREAT satire, Lo_Pan

 Shame Sikes and QScribe didn't realize that's what it was. Lighten up, you two!  

I thought it was hilarious (another " h" word, uh oh) and thought " Oh Noes- our secret is out!"

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by: Miranda Writes @ Tue Dec 09, 2008 at 10:38:34 AM CST

[ Parent ]

I just asked What?

I was leaning toward thinking it was satire, but I can totally see that post showing on some religious wacko website as the real thing.

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by: Sikes @ Tue Dec 09, 2008 at 11:42:19 AM CST

[ Parent ]

My apologies, Sikes.

My bad.
Sorry.

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by: Miranda Writes @ Tue Dec 09, 2008 at 14:01:03 PM CST

[ Parent ]

More H Words

Haemorrhage, Haemophilia, Heterosexual, Hippopotamus, Hibiscus, Holly, Harry and the Hendersons, Harry and Hermoine, Hints from Heloise, Hopscotch, Hathor, Honey, House, and (most evil of all) Humus
Hey, this is fun!

watashi no yomeiri wa doko desu ka

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by: belfrieboi @ Tue Dec 09, 2008 at 14:08:47 PM CST

[ Parent ]