By Cliff Dunn
On Friday, August 3, hundreds of LGBT rights activists and allies protested at South Florida locations of Chick-fil-A, drawing awareness to the company’s history of contributions to anti-gay causes. Registered Independents, Republicans, Democrats, parents, married couples, singles, and concerned citizens, gay and straight, gave voice with their presence to their support for marriage equality and human rights.
On this page: The faces of your fellow Americans.
CHICAGO, IL – One of the oldest Roman Catholic churches in Chicago has objected to the proposed route for the city’s gay pride parade claiming that the parade will draw large crowds and block the entrance of the church for Sunday Mass, the Chicago Tribune reported.
For over 40 years, the parade has run through the north side of the Chicago and attracted over 800,000 people last year. To better accommodate the large crowds, the parade organizers extended the route next year further north, has scaled back the number of floats and will start the parade earlier in the day. Chicago’s gay pride parade is held the last Sunday in June.
The new route takes the parade in front of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church. Church officials are circulating a petition informing the city that the extended route and the earlier parade start time conflicts with the church’s Mass schedule and that the church may, for the first time in almost 100 years, have to cancel services the day of the parade.
Londoners descend on Soho to protest ‘Kiss’
Alex Vaughn
A large protest of hundreds of people gathered outside the John Snow pub in Soho, central London earlier this week in reaction to a gay couple being ejecting from the venue for kissing.
The protest-come-party, originally planned as a ‘gay kiss-in’ from within the venue, was re-located to outside the pub after the establishment’s management decided to close it for the day at 3pm.
One protester pinned a rainbow flag to the door frame of the pub, while others posted flyers of men in varying states of undress to the windows. Another man held a placard saying “I want to blow you all” in large letters with “(a small kiss)” written much smaller below.
Couples kissed, while others simply enjoyed the opportunity to party in the pleasant spring weather.
Human rights activist Peter Tatchell said :”Although much of London is gay-friendly, the apparent discrimination against Jonathan and James shows that pockets of prejudice remain, even in gay Soho.”
More than 800 people pledged to attend the demonstration in support of the gay couple, who were kicked out on Wednesday evening.
Jonathan Williams, 26, and Jamie Bull, 23, were on a first date in the pub when a woman claiming to be the landlady allegedly ordered them to leave.
The couple say they were kicked out for quietly kissing in a corner and a witness backed up their claims. Jamie Morton said the kissing was “innocent”.
Mr Williams continued: “When we were kissing – not in any confrontational way, but simply on the mouth – a uniformed member of staff approached us. She said she was the publican, but refused to give us her name, or give her name to the people sitting next to us when they asked. She told us we had to leave, to which we replied that we had no intention to. At that point the man who’d first approached us moved the table so he could get to me and grabbed me by the collar of my suit jacket. ”
But the drinker who first complained about the couple claimed they were “over the top”. Gary from Richmond, who did not give his surname, told BBC 5 Live: “I have gay friends and lesbian friends. They were asked by the barman to moderate their behaviour, which they didn’t do. It was more than a short kiss. It was a full on snog.”
Westminster Council record the managers of the John Snow to be Carla Cookson and Graham Jackson. The licencee is listed as Thomas and the landlord to be Thomas Jeffrey Paget.
SAN DIEGO, CA – A judge ruled that a pro-gay rights group could continue to canvas outside Target Department Stores in California. The protesters, however, would be required to stay at least 30 feet from the stores’ entrances and protest at only one entrance at a time.
Target’s corporate headquarters had sought an injunction preventing gay activists from every one of their stores in the state, claiming customers were being harassed, given information in favor of same-sex marriage, being solicited for donations and asked to sign petitions.
The gay rights organization, Canvass for a Cause, said that the lawsuit would further hurt relationships between the LGBT community and Target, and they were simply exercising their right of free speech.
Superior Court Judge Jeffrey B arton s
aid Target stores may fall under a California law that considers shopping centers to be public forums. Also, canvassing over the last year occurred mainly without incident and Target failed to demonstrate that customers were being harassed.
MEADVILLE, PA – Students and faculty at Allegheny College marched across the college campus to bring attention to anti-homosexual slurs written on dormitory doors twice in recent months.
College officials are investigating the incidents, which took place in February. The protest was organized by a group who calls themselves Queer ‘n Allies.
by JAMES MICHAELS
LGBT activists has designated a national day of protest against neighborhood Target Department Stores for Saturday, August 14 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sporadic protests have already been held in numerous cities throughout the United States. Organizers are upset with the Target Corporation for making a contribution to MN Forward, a political organization supporting Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer. Emmer is known for opposing gay rights and especially gay marriage.
Earlier this year in January, the United States Supreme Court ruled, in a 5-to-4 decision that the government can not ban donations to political organizations made by corporations with the court claiming is was a case of free speech. The dropping of the ban did not include direct corporate donations to individual candidates.
Target’s donation was $100,000 in cash and another $50,000 in goods and services. Both Target and Best Buy, another retailer which made a $100,000 donation to MN Forward, had previously rated a 100% from the HRC Foundation’s Corporate Equality Index.
“Target has been a champion for workplace equality for many years,” said HRC President Joe Solmonese in a written statement. “That’s why their recent donation to MN Forward was so at odds with their sterling reputation as a great employer for LGBT people.
The fact that their political contribution was used to advance an anti-equality candidate was extremely hurtful to all fair-minded Americans.”
Target responded with: “Target understands the concerns of the HRC. We have had multiple conversations with the HRC during the past few weeks and will continue our constructive dialogue. Target respects the work of the HRC and appreciates our partnership with them over the years. We hope to continue to work with the HRC in a spirit of mutual cooperation.”
Target said that its decision to support MN Forward was based solely on helping to elect candidates who make lower taxes, jobs and economic issues a top priority.
Target’s chief executive, Gregg Steinhael also sent a statement to Target employees saying that the company is genuinely sorry about the donation and vowed to review the process in which political donations are decided.
Since the revelation of the donation, gay-rights activists have called for demonstrations outside of Target stores throughout the country and to destroy Target Visa credit cards. At first, Target stock has lost over $1.3 billion with the threat of a nationwide boycott, a loss of 3.5% but has since risen to pre-boycott levels.
Other research showed that Target has a history of supporting anti-gay causes. Abe Sauer wrote in The Awl that “The truth is not that Target and its leadership have suddenly turned on their commitment to gay rights. It’s more that it never really existed to begin with. Further research shows that Target has funneled significant funding to the most socially conservative of Republicans and that it boasts a frightening culture of anti-gay candidate support from Target’s own stable of top executives.”
The progressive-leaning MoveOn.org has joined in calling for a boycott of Target.
As a side note, Tom Emmer’s Democratic opponent for Minnesota governor is Mark Dayton whose family founded Dayton-Hudson Department stores which owns Target.
At press time, questions to Target corporate media relations department went unanswered.
