Governor Susana Martinez Unmoved On Same-Sex Marriage Despite Hairstylist Protest

WASHINGTON -- Despite the public protests of a local hairstylist, New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez said on Monday that she would continue to oppose efforts to legalize same-sex marriage in her state.

The Republican was turned down for a hair appointment because of her opposition to marriage equality. But when asked by The Huffington Post if that bit of non-violent civil disobedience had caused her to reconsider the issue, she replied, definitively: "no."

"First of all, if reporters would ask me the first question, which would be 'Is he my hair stylist?' The answer is no," Martinez said, after having left a meeting of the nation's governors at the White House. "He did my hair three times when I first moved to Santa Fe. But frankly he talked too much ... I just went, 'You know, I go here to relax."

Several weeks ago Martinez was left sans-attendant for her shoulder length bob after stylist Antonio Darden declined to take her as a customer. Darden, an openly gay 46-year-old Santa Fe resident, told The Huffington Post that he had been persuaded to drop the governor as a client after he heard her speak favorably about Gov. Chris Christie's (R) decision to veto same-sex marriage legislation in New Jersey.

"It makes me think more, why don’t gay people, because of the service industry we provide, start doing the same thing and get our rights," Darden said. "We are not asking for something outrageous."

Comments

[ncrespi]

12:00 PM on 04/08/2013

typo. "secual" should be "sexual"

[ncrespi]

12:00 PM on 04/08/2013

What's next? I won't be able to buy food unless I share the same religious, political or secual views as my grocer? Those who WANT tolerance must SHOW it. Grow up!

[WhiteGinger]

04:00 AM on 02/29/2012

If she complains of him talking too much, why did she got to him three times?

[roger allen]

02:39 AM on 02/29/2012

Every restaurant kitchen in Santa Fe will keep a "Miss Minnie's Chocolate Pie" on deck, just for her. She won't be able to eat out in about 50 states! Some "sows chef" is gonna get even.

[ducebiggs]

11:52 PM on 02/28/2012

She a fraud...!

[sf1000000]

10:46 PM on 02/28/2012

Well from her looks, her hair is the least of her problems...tell her to put on a HAT better yet a thick veil would help too.

[bbg372]

05:02 PM on 02/28/2012

She was so dissatisfied with his service that she called the following day to see if he would change his mind.

[nevereclipsed81]

04:13 PM on 02/28/2012

Oh snap. Her thought bubble:"I'll just say he talked too much, because straight people will understand. All these gays talk all the time, and we're all so annoyed. But we allow them to do our hair anyway because we just go there to relax.". Damn. Way to steriotype girl.

[MBGarcia]

03:59 PM on 02/28/2012

Dear Susana Martinez, the LGBT community in Santa Fe, NM is significant and influential. Your best approach to this particular issue would have been to show some class and not respond...didn't anyone in Texas teach you to say "no comment?" You are insulting, belittling and offending a large sector of the population in the city where you have a pretty big, pretty nice house...those people help pay your salary...and calling a gay hairstylist "chatty" is adding to the negative stigma.

Why don't you worry about responding to why your designated Secretary of Education has been waiting to get confirmed since you got elected? Why don't you address the issue about how your state is so low in education rankings that it just about drops out of the list?

Instead of picking an argument with a gay stylist who refused to work on your hair a fourth time (sorry, honey, you take that helmet to the same person more than twice...they're your hairstylist,) how about showing some maturity and letting the issue go?

[l78lancer]

03:58 PM on 02/28/2012

It doesn't matter if he did her hair 3 times or 3000 times. The fact is that the next time that she wanted an appointment she was denied.

It's tough to escape the point that Darden makes and the governor will always look like the small, capricious, objecting party.

[aviandonn]

03:05 PM on 02/28/2012

He's not my hairstylest. He only cut my hair three times. He talks to much. I want to relax....
Lots of justifications/excuses trying to convince everyone she doesn't care. But when you coming out with a whole list of reasons to explain why you don't care, then you're clearly on the defensive. And if you're on the defensive, then you know that you doing something that you need to defend.

You know you're wrong governor. And sooner or later in your political career, you'll be coming out to explain to us how you were never against gay marriage per se, it was just yada yada yada.

[Eric in Manhattan]

01:57 PM on 02/28/2012

She doesn't jsut need a hairdresser, she needs Jenny Craig!

[mushimom]

10:02 PM on 02/28/2012

Ouch!!...lol..;)

[deckercat]

12:39 PM on 02/28/2012

she doesn't look like she has ever met a hair stylist.

[timesrtough]

11:53 AM on 02/28/2012

What better reason could you find to change your opinion on an important moral decision that to follow the wants and desires of your part-time hairstylist.
Doesn't everyone listen and concur with the important information passed along by their hairstylists?
Who better to give you life altering advice?
We can only hope that the First Lady listens to her stylist.

[Since59]

04:28 PM on 02/28/2012

Hope your hairstylist doesn't read this.

[timesrtough]

05:29 PM on 02/28/2012

The only member of my family that comes close to taking advice from any kind of "hairstylist" is the family dog when he gets his summer trim.
And since I know the stylist I do know that he doesn't give a doggy poop bag about the marriage issue.
Just another manufactured outrage.

[BlueDog1]

11:36 AM on 02/28/2012

Jan's sister got a job in N. Mexico.

[MBGarcia]

04:00 PM on 02/28/2012

Jan probably doesn't like Susana because she's Hispanic, but don't tell Susana that: she obviously doesn't realize it.