 Yes On 8 organizers claim that boycotts of businesses like El Coyote violate the business’s rights. WeHo News - West Hollywood’s ONLY Newspaper, ONLY ONLINE! |
“Amidst all this lawlessness, harassment, trampling of civil rights and now domestic terrorism, one thing stands out: the deafening silence of our elected officials,’ said spokesperson Frank Shubert of ProtectMarriage.com.
WeHo News contacted the Yes On 8 campaign to find out which of the supporters’ civil rights were violated, only to discover new law being made by the campaign.
As reported in Thursday’s issue of WeHo News, Yes On 8 campaign manager Ron Prentice issued a statement saying, in part, “Tragically, some opponents of Prop. 8 who claim to cherish tolerance and civil rights are unabashedly trampling on the rights of others.”
The statement issued by Mr. Shubert provided a glimpse into the campaign’s legal reasoning for their claim. It said: “In the past ten days, hostility has increased against people whose only offense was to exercise their right to participate in the political process.
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“Some of the outrageous activities include…a musical theater director [being] forced to resign after he was blacklisted for contributing $1000 to the initiative, [El Coyote restaurant] has been boycotted after a relative of the owner donated to the coalition, numerous churches have had their property defaced, and an unknown white powder was mailed to several LDS temples and the National Headquarters of the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic organization that supported the campaign.”
 Yes On 8 proponents have created a right to participate in the public dialogue without fear in response to protests against the discision to strip civil rights from gays. Photo by David Cantor. WeHo News - West Hollywood’s ONLY Newspaper, ONLY ONLINE! |
The FBI is investigating the latter incidents, however, no connection to the No On 8 or gay people have been made, said a spokesperson.
Jim Key, communications director at the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center, responded with a "wow" when he heard the claims of civil rights violations.
"It's ironic [they] complain about their rights when they came into our state to trample on the rights of California gays and lesbians, using religion as their tool," he said.
A call to Yes On 8 headquarters in Orange County netted the following clarification on the issue from spokesperson Meg Waters, who admitted to not knowing herself which rights, precisely, the campaign leaders claimed had been violated.
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“People have a right to participate in the electoral process without fear of intimidation or harassment,” said Ms. Waters.
When told of that rationale, legal scholars scoffed.
 Yes On 8 proponents have created a right to participate in the public dialogue without fear in response to protests against the discision to strip civil rights from gays. Photo by David Cantor. WeHo News - West Hollywood’s ONLY Newspaper, ONLY ONLINE! |
Executive director of UCLA’s Williams Institute, Harvard-educated attorney Brad Sears, said, “They do like to play the victim.”
“The right to participate without fear is not a right that’s recognized by any state constitution, and certainly not in the United States’ Constitution,” he said. “The right to vote is a recognized right, but it isn’t people who voted being targeted, but those who gave money.”
He explained that boycotters had every right to spend their money where ever they like for whatever reason they choose.
“Businesses certainly have no right to anyone’s patronage,” he said.
Still, the Yes On 8 crowd attacked the political leaders who have called the vote a miscarriage of justice and who have joined in the briefs asking the Supreme Court to overturn the initiative.
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“Where is Governor Arnold Schwarzenengger [sic] while churches are being attacked? And where is Senator Dianne Feinstein while people are losing their jobs and grandmothers are being bullied by an angry mob?” said Campaign Co-Manager Frank Schubert in his statement.
 Yes On 8 proponents have created a right to participate in the public dialogue without fear in response to protests against the discision to strip civil rights from gays. Photo by David Cantor. WeHo News - West Hollywood’s ONLY Newspaper, ONLY ONLINE! |
The representatives of the Mormon Church decried the protests and boycotts, saying that they won fair and square, and so should be protected from critic’s ire, a position fraught with cognitive dissonance, given the Mormon Church’s past.
In 1997 American Association of University Professors refused accreditation to Mormon Brigham Young University in Utah because it had harassed and fired professors while denying them their academic rights.
In 1999 a mob of Mormon protesters descended on a Nevada town to try to bury a adult book store using picketing, harassment of patrons and similar tactics, eventually driving the business under.
The FBI said that no civil rights violations had been reported by Prop 8 supporters; the Unites States Attorney’s office said they had not heard anything from Yes On 8, either.
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Protesters against the decision say they have experienced every form of harassment known from the Yes On 8 side, including being spat upon, called foul names and assault.
 Yes On 8 proponents have created a right to participate in the public dialogue without fear in response to protests against the discision to strip civil rights from gays. Photo by David Cantor. WeHo News - West Hollywood’s ONLY Newspaper, ONLY ONLINE! |
At the first demonstration in front of the LA Mormon Temple, one Yes On 8 supporter got caught on camera beating a protester who took a yard sign off his truck while he was stuck in traffic.
Robert Kalonian, president of the WeHo Democratic Club, passed an E mail along from one Daniel Hughes, a Yes On 8 supporter, writing about the letter, “Not that any of us who have been marching over the past week aren’t used to this sort of verbal abuse, but this guy went out of his way to look me up and send this email.”
The E mail read, “i [sic] recently saw a clip on the news of your piece of s--t tactics ...
you're [sic] a f---ing piece of s--t of a person ...
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you're [sic] a disgusting excuse a a [sic] human being ...
bury [sic] your head up your ass and take a deep breathe of the hate that you spew ... may [sic] you live a long life of misery within yourself.”
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CORRECTION: In yesterday's iteration of this article we inadvertantly published information we later discovered was a hoax.
We wrote: "In 2004, picketers and protesters demanded that Utah grocery stores stop selling a brand of razor named for a Greek god, succeeding through their harassment of patrons and employees in having the product removed.
That information was actually part of a satire written several years ago.
We regret the error, and apologize to the Church of Latter Day Saints, our readers and give thanks to Darin Weeks and Eric Mueller, who pointed out how We had been taken in.