5 Big Wins for Militant Gay Pressure Groups
By Ben Shapiro
Breitbart.com
On Sunday, the city of New York marked St.
Patrick’s Day with its historic parade – but this
year, Mayor Bill De Blasio was missing. The reason:
parade organizers have banned political messages,
including pro-homosexuality messages. The same
situation unfolded in Boston, where Mayor Martin
Walsh boycotted their St. Patrick’s Day parade over
organizers refusing access to a gay group.
Is all of this due to some latent or overt
homophobia on the part of parade organizers? Of
course not – pro-lifers and National Rifle
Association members cannot carry banners for their
causes, either. Ireland’s head of government, Enda
Kennedy, has said, “The St. Patrick’s Day parade is
a parade about our Irishness and not about
sexuality, and I would be happy to participate in
it.”
But apathy is not good enough when it comes to the
radical gay bullies who now insist that every event
carry the stamp of their movement. And so sponsors
like brewer Sam
Adams in Boston and Guinness
in New York pulled out of the parade. Guinness
pulled out after radical gay groups threatened to
march to Stonewall, a historically important point
for the gay rights movement, and pour vats of
Guinness into the streets. The Gay and Lesbian
Alliance Against Defamation quickly praised
Guinness’ move, with CEO and President Sarah Kate
Ellis stating:
Today, Guinness sent a strong message to its
customers and employees: discrimination should never
be celebrated. As a gay mom who has fond memories of
the New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade, it
saddens me that I can’t give those same memories to
my own kids because my family isn’t welcome.
Hopefully, as parade organizers realize that
anti-LGBT discrimination is not supported by
sponsors, or many Irish New Yorkers, they’ll see
that families like mine should be part of the
celebration.
This has become the raison d’etre of many in the gay
rights movement: destroying the businesses of those
who refuse to abide by their standards of conduct,
all in the name of tolerance. And they’ve been
tremendously successful at it. Here are the top five
recent instances of successful gay intimidation of
business:
Duck Dynasty. When Duck
Dynasty patriarch Phil Robertson told GQ magazine
that he thought homosexuality was sinful and did not
understand it personally (his exact words: “It seems
like, to me, a vagina—as a man—would be more
desirable than a man’s anus. That’s just me. I’m
just thinking: There’s more there! She’s got more to
offer. I mean, come on, dudes! You know what I’m
saying? But hey, sin: It’s not logical, my man. It’s
just not logical”) and had the temerity to
paraphrase the book of Corinthians, the gay left
went into action.
A&E suspended Robertson after GLAAD got involved.
GLAAD representative Wilson Cruz slandered Robertson
as a bigot and even went so far as to call him a fake
Christian. Only after national blowback was
Robertson reinstated – and only after the Duck
Dynasty family supposedly
agreed to meet with homosexual advocacy groups.
“We’ve received assurances also that the Robertson
family is now open to working with African-American
and LGBT people to address the real harm that such
anti-gay and racist comments can cause,” said Fred
Sainz of the Human Rights Campaign.
The Boy Scouts of America. For
years, the Boy Scouts of America have been under
assault for their policy of not allowing openly gay
scout leaders; the organization changed its policy
in January 2014 to allow openly gay scouts. The Boy
Scouts’ decision to back off its previous policy
banning “open or avowed” homosexuals across the
board followed both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney
ripping the Scouts during the 2012 election cycle,
as well as national food chain Chipotle announcing
that it would remove
its support for the Boy Scouts.
But that capitulation with regard to gay scouts has
not appeased homosexual advocates, who have taken
their fight to the Boy Scouts’ sponsors. In
February, Disney World announced it would no
longer sponsor the Scouts over their ban on
openly homosexual scoutmasters.
Chick-Fil-A. In 2012, Chick-Fil-A
president Dan Cathy stated:
We are very much supportive of the family — the
biblical definition of the family unit. We are a
family-owned business, a family-led business, and we
are married to our first wives. We give God thanks
for that... We want to do anything we possibly can
to strengthen families. We are very much committed
to that. We intend to stay the course. We know that
it might not be popular with everyone, but thank the
Lord, we live in a country where we can share our
values and operate on biblical principles.
Despite the fact that Chick-Fil-A served gay people
throughout the United States, gay groups began a
national boycott against the chain. Mayors Thomas
Menino of Boston and Rahm Emanuel of Chicago
announced that Chick-Fil-A was not welcome in their
cities. San Fracisco Mayor Edwin M. Lee tweeted,
“Very disappointed #ChickFilA doesn’t share San
Francisco’s values & strong commitment to equality
for everyone… Closest #ChickFilA to San Francisco is
40 miles away & I strongly recommend that they not
try to come any closer.”
The intimidation campaign had its predicted effect:
Jim Henson Company dropped its relationship with the
company, and the company itself reportedly stopped
giving money to charities against same-sex marriage,
although the company disputed that report. Its 2014
tax returns showed a marked
decrease in company support for such charities.
Arizona SB 1062. In the wake of
court rulings across the country forcing religious
businessowners to service same-sex weddings – a Christian
bakery in Oregon, a Christian
florist in Washington, a Christian
wedding photographer in New Mexico – the
legislature of Arizona felt it worthwhile to
reiterate the legal standard for religious freedom
in the state. To that end, the legislature proposed
a bill that would have reaffirmed an affirmative
defense to court cases filed against religious
businessowners, in which religious businessowners
could claim legitimate religious expression as a
rationale for refusing service. That right, of
course, was trumped in the bill by state action “in
furtherance of a compelling government interest” if
such state action is “the least restrictive means of
furthering that compelling government interest.” The
bill did not allow religious businessowners to
discriminate where Arizona law had prevented such
discrimination in the past.
Nonetheless, the media, alongside gay rights groups,
went to work on crafting the lie that Arizona’s law
was a new form of “anti-gay” Jim Crow. With that lie
in mind, the NFL quickly speculated that the law
could cost
the state the Super Bowl, and major corporations
including Apple said that the law could stop
business from entering the state. Other
corporations including American Airlines and Intel quickly
joined that group. So Governor Jan Brewer (R-AZ)
caved, vetoing the law.
Proposition 8 Supporters. In the
aftermath of California’s enshrinement of
traditional marriage as the standard in the 2008
election, gay rights groups began targeting
supporters of the measure. Leaving aside major
protests against the Mormons and the Catholic Church
in California, individuals and businesses were
targeted, including but not limited to:
Scott Eckern, California Musical Theater: Eckern
lost his job after donating $1,000 to the
Proposition 8 effort. After resigning, in an effort
to buy off his detractors, he pledged $1,000 to the Human
Rights Campaign. He released a statement: “I
understand that my choice of supporting Proposition
8 has been the cause of many hurt feelings, maybe
even betrayal. It was not my intent. I honestly had
no idea that this would be the reaction. I chose to
act upon my belief that the traditional definition
of marriage should be preserved. I support each
individual to have rights and access and I
understood that in California domestic partnerships
come with the same rights that come with marriage.
My sister is a lesbian and in a committed domestic
partnership relationship. I am loving and supportive
of her and her family, and she is loving and
supportive of me and my family. I definitely do not
support any message or treatment of others that is
hateful or instills fear. This is a highly emotional
issue and the accusations that have been made
against me are simply not true.”
Richard Raddon, Director, Los Angeles Film Festival:
He was forced to resign after the Film Festival
essentially denounced him for donating to the
Proposition 8 campaign.
El Coyote Restaurant: Marjorie Christoffersen,
manager of the restaurant, is a Mormon who donated a
whopping $100 to the Proposition 8 campaign; the
restaurant was picketed.
The Manchester Grand Hyatt Hotel in San Diego: Owner
Doug Manchester had the gall to donate cash to
Proposition 8. That bought him boycotts.
Corporate America fears controversy. The militant
gay rights movement understands that well, which is
why it targets corporations for political blowback
when businessowners get involved in politics, even
tangentially. Conservatives have historically been
wary to engage in the same tactics. But as the left
has demonstrated, the tactics work. The only
question is whether the right will continue to play
by Marquess of Queensbury rules.
Ben Shapiro is Senior Editor-At-Large of
Breitbart News and author of the New York Times
bestseller “Bullies:
How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation
Silences America” (Threshold Editions,
January 8, 2013). He is also Editor-in-Chief of TruthRevolt.org. Follow
Ben Shapiro on Twitter @benshapiro.