Hate Has Its Consequences

"I've almost had a nervous breakdown. It's been the worst thing that's ever happened to me," Margie Christoffersen sobbed as curious patrons at a Farmers Market coffee shop looked on, wondering what calamity had visited this poor woman who's an honest 6 feet tall, with hair as blond as the sun.

Well, Christoffersen was a manager at El Coyote, the Beverly Boulevard landmark restaurant that's always had throngs of customers waiting to get inside. Many of them were gay, and Christoffersen, a devout Mormon, donated $100 in support of Proposition 8, the successful November ballot initiative that banned gay marriage.

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.

The LA Times article goes on and on at great length to pluck at the reader's heartstrings-- invoking the image of the restaurant's 92-year-old owner, telling us that Margie was only "raised Mormon by her father", detailing the unfortunate plight of the restaurant's 89 employees, etc.

I feel sorry that Margie has to go through this-- but bigotry is bigotry, quite frankly. And it doesn't matter where it comes from. Decades ago official Catholic policy was to oppose the marriage of black and white people-- but no one nowadays would dream of supporting a ban against interracial marriage. We Catholics were expected to grow beyond our outdated/bigoted beliefs or risk being marginalized in society.

People only modify their beliefs and/or actions by weighing the consequences of one alternative vs. another-- and the time has come where people can no longer expect to hide their hate/bigotry and think they can remain an accepted member of the community.