Margaritas Flow Again: El Coyote Manager Resigns Over Prop 8

Marjorie Christoffersen stepped down as a manager at the Los Angeles Mexican restaurant El Coyote. Christoffersen's $100 donation caused controversy for and criticism of the 77-year-old L.A. dining spot after local blogs broke the news she had donated $100 to the Yes on Proposition 8 campaign at the behest of her Mormon faith.

Bill Schoeppner, a fellow manager at El Coyote who has been with the restaurant for 26 years, told Frontiers Magazine Christoffersen also resigned as a member of El Coyote's board of directors:

She no longer works here. She just told me tonight...Everybody is kind of used to her walking around the restaurant with a water pitcher going from table to table to table. I guess that part is no longer going to exist.

Frontiers' Christopher Lisotta reports:

Schoeppner said Christoffersen tended her resignation to her mother, Grace Salisbury, described on the El Coyote Web site as the "matriarch" of the restaurant. Salisbury's sister-in-law founded El Coyote in 1931.

El Coyote's inexpensive Mexican food, generous margaritas, and central location made the restaurant a popular spot for generations, and it was an LGBT favorite for its food drinks, and kitsch facto, as well as its history: Sharon Tate ate her last meal there and George Clooney and Fabio got into a dust up when the Italian model called Hollywood's Numero Uno leading man "a diva."Once Christoffersen's donation hit the web, El Coyote became the target of boycotts and demonstrations . At a press conference/breakfast hosted by the restaurant--where no one ate a thing-- days after the news of the donation broke, Christoffersen tried to explain her donation did not have to do with any distaste for LGBT community, but was instead tied to her Mormon faith.

At the community meeting, attended by over 70 members of the community, many of whom were long time customers, Christoffersen did not apologize for the donation and did not indicate she would support any No on 8 organization. A series of demonstrations and a month long boycott began. The community itself felt hurt and betrayed by Christoffersen, who had always been kind to them.

When one of the guys died from AIDS, Marjorie paid for his mother to fly out for his funeral. She is not a bad woman, she just listened to her church and couldn't see, didn't understand. There's a disconnect. But our money went towards taking away our rights.

It is sad Christoffersen's faith stepped into her relationship with people she had known for decades and cared about and made her see them as "less than" and undeserving of the same rights she and her family have.

Lisa Derrick writes for campaignsilo.com, patr of the firedoglake.com website

Comments

[NutmegYankee]

pgstreby,

Just for your information, reductio ad Hitlerum refers to the fallacy "Hitler supported X, therefore X must be bad and vice versa". In addittion, Godwin's Law only states that as a thread gets longer, the probability of a nazi comparison approaches one. Neither of these eliminates the fact that there are in fact valid uses of Nazis in threads. A thread on genocide for instance would be a very valid use. Pointing out that people stand by and do nothing while a minority is persecuted, as timinhi did, is in fact a valid use of the Nazi regime, and your claims are incorrect.

In addition, Boycotts have always been considered a democratic option to force a business to change their practices, and the claim that to avoid patronizing a business is thuggery is ludicrous.

[JayJonson]

California state law, and the federal government as well, requires that people who make contributions over a certain amount ($200 in federal elections, less in California elections) to identify themselves by their address and their employer. There are good reasons for this. It is a way to monitor money laundering and violations of election laws. (The Mormon Church is currently under investigation for lying about the amount of money it put into the campaign in favor of Proposition 8: it is likely to wind up paying a large fine.) I think people should have the courage of their convictions. If they are so much in favor of depriving people of their civil rights, they should be happy to identify themselves. And I like knowing who hates me so much that they want to destroy my marriage.

[johncomment]

so can we please identify the religion and home address or other contact information of all voters, so if someone gives money to a candidate or for political position i don't like, i can picket and boycott their employer so they will lose their job?

[JayJonson]

pgstreby, you seem quite willing to allow Chrissoferson and her ilk to crush gay people, and on top of that you expect them to be happy with it, or at least continue to patronize her restaurant. There is nothing thuggish about refusing to patronize people who take away your right to get married.

[pgstreby]

Yes, if you can't persuade people, just crush 'em. Not politically - personally. Does any reasonable person actually think that this country would be better off with this sort of political thuggishness?

As to timinhi's ludicrous reductio ad hitlerum, please Google "Godwin's Law." Playing the Nazi card is a common tactic for the arrogant and lazy to shut off debate.

[JayJonson]

There was nothing vicious about the reaction to El Coyote and Chrisofferson. She wasn't "forced" to resign. She resigned of her own will. People who object to her helping fund an initiative that denied them equal rights have every right to refuse to patronize her business.

[barbicane]

Leave it to the gay community to take a perfectly sympathetic story ("Minority group stripped of their rights") and blow it by victimizing Marjorie Christoffersen. Marjorie and her own sympathetic story ("Kindly senior forced to resign over religious beliefs") will be a rallying point the next time gay marriage comes up for a vote.

When that happens, soft-hearted religious voters -- people otherwise inclined to root for the disenfranchised -- will remember a series of resignations: people who meekly apologized for causing pain, but never for their convictions: "If my beliefs cost me my livelihood, so be it."

I think we'll find that the El Coyote saga makes a compelling martyrdom.

[freddie]

Lisa, I'm not sure the margaritas are ready to flow again. Nobody I know had a problem -- at least one that rose to boycott levels -- with an "employee" who donated a measly $100 bucks. The bigger issue is that Marjorie, by some accounts, owns 1/3 of the restaurant's stock and ultimately stands to own the place outright after her aunt's death. I've heard nothing in today's news about her partial OWNERSHIP of El Coyote. Given her mandatory 10% tithes to her church, my friends and I still don't want to be funding discrimination against ourselves.

[timinhi]

Sometimes life is tough. She could have maintained her religious (or otherwise) beliefs and kept them to herself and no one would ever have known, and she'd still have her job, and her measly $100 contribution would never have been missed. Instead, she chose to give an organization a donation that they used to hurt people, and now she is being held accountable for her lack of wisdom. There were a lot of "nice" people living in Nazi Germany too who stood by and allowed their friends and neighbors to be carted off to death camps without saying a word of protest. A lot of them voted for Hitler. This is an object lesson in taking care in the personal choices we make, and of the importance of a strong separation of church and state . . .

[pyrometer]

"The community itself felt hurt and betrayed by Christopherson, who had always been kind to them."
Well I voted no on prop. 8 and have never been to El Coyote but the sometimes vicious responses of
the gay community make me question whether they have emotionally matured enough to be trustworthy
as a friend. It would seem that if "the community" valued Marjorie they would not be so quick to be punitive. If the community expects to be treated with respect they need to deliver on some as well in their quest for equality. Please try not to give me reasons to change my generally pro gay rights position. Maybe it was just too many margaritas.