Andy Thayer, the GLN and Fiesta Azteca

About a week ago, in Alsip, IL, a suburb located approximately 20 miles southwest of Chicago, two gay men went to dine at a restaurant called La Fiesta Azteca. They claimed they were discriminated against by the owner and asked to leave. Accounts of what really happened that night differ, as they often do after such events. The gay couple claim that they were merely interacting with each other as any couple in love would - i.e. what most people would probably define as mild PDA, things like gentle kissing, hand holding, cutsey-couple things. The owner, in his interview on Fox news, claimed they were going at it pretty hot and heavy. He insinuated the couple was acting inappropriately by any standards regardless of gender. The gay couple played the homophobia card and a "kiss-in" was staged at the institution.

My motive for writing about this is not to discuss how these events have probably hurt business (and they have), and it is not to talk about the reactions of the sample population polled by Fox News (the people shown on the original segment which aired were not in favor of same-sex PDA, or any PDA for that matter. They also expressed concern that same-sex kissing as well as a gay kiss-in protest would hurt business and create an uncomfortable atmosphere for diners in a family oriented restaurant). I also am not interested in the Illinois State Law, which states that if you want to ban kissing in your establishment, you must post a sign that says so explicitly. If a sign is not posted, you must tolerate all kissing, regardless of the sexes involved. What I am most interested in is the hypocrisy and violent reaction of the GLBT community whenever they "feel" their "civil rights" are being infringed upon.

I would like to address the visceral and violent reaction of the GLBT community to perceived snubs. I received this e-mail through Facebook yesterday, in response to the "kiss-in" that was held at La Fiesta Azteca. I shall reproduce it here:

------------------------ E-mail pasted below ---------------------
Hi everyone,

We have received at least one report of an attendee at Friday’s Kiss-In receiving a phone call from someone purporting to be from the Gay Liberation Network (GLN) making threatening remarks about Kiss-Iners being on the receiving end of a potential lawsuit from La Fiesta Azteca due to “loss of business.”

Please understand that if you receive such a phone call, it is NOT coming from anyone at GLN. During the latter part of our Kiss-In or immediately after it, someone from Fiesta Azteca apparently picked up the GLN sign-up clipboards from a table in the restaurant and has used them to make these false phone calls while impersonating being a GLN member.

Unfortunately, thanks to this apparent theft of the clipboards, GLN does NOT have your email addresses or phone numbers, and so if you would like information about the Pride Parade contingent (and other activities), please send an email to LGBTliberation@aol.com – say that you were at the Kiss-In and wish to be on the GLN list, and give your name, email address and/or phone number.

Please understand that for someone from Fiesta Azteca to be making these fraudulent phone calls means that instead of any participants in our Kiss-In potentially facing a lawsuit, it is the makers of these calls who are themselves breaking the law and potentially subjecting themselves to criminal and civil proceedings. If you receive one of these calls, please do the following:

1) Look at your caller I.D. (if you have it) and copy down the phone number and any additional information it provides about the caller.
2) Take careful notes as to what the caller says, getting exact quotes where you can.
3) Ask the caller to give his/her name, and copy that down.
4) Do not make threatening remarks against Fiesta Azteca or offer up any information about yourself or others.

Sorry for this hassle, but apparently La Fiesta Azteca were even greater homophobes than we thought they were originally.

Finally, thank you again for participating in the Kiss-In!!

Yours,

Andy Thayer, Gay Liberation Network
Frank Nielsen
Danny Hankes

--------------------------------- End of E-mail --------------------

Mr. Andy Thayer is making quite a few brazen accusations in this letter. Nowhere does GLN claim to have incontravertible evidence that makes it clear beyond a reasonable doubt that the theft of the clipboards was perpetrated by an employee of Fiesta Azteca. It seems only that it was implied. Many possibilities regarding the theft of the clipboards exist. Maybe it was a concerned citizen with no ties to the restaurant. Maybe it was someone who had religious or moral objections to a same-sex Kiss-In. To give Mr. Thayer the benefit of the doubt, maybe it even was an employee of the Fiesta Azteca, trying to save their family business from financial ruin. Saving a venture which requires the investment of the amount of money that a restaurant requires does not translate to "homophobia." It is not "homophobic" to want customers to eat at your restaurant, and it is not homophobic to want 99% of the customers at your ***family-oriented establishment*** to feel comfortable at the expense of 1%. But like I said, I'm not getting into whether or not I agree with the owner's actions or the couple's kissing. I am getting into the fact I disagree with the loathesome methods the GLBT community has recently employed to circumvent freedom of thought.

I am reminded of the recent debacle over Prop 8 in California. The GLBT community responded to people who supported Prop 8 by violating their privacy while embarking on a witch hunt that would have made McCarthy blush. People who donated money - specifically the Mormons - in favor of preserving traditional marriage had to face a veritable shitstorm. Many had their identities published on a "blacklist" and as a result, faced a barrage of harassment. Their employers received angry phone calls, their businesses were boycotted, many of them were fired or forced to resign, they dealt with crude phone calls and e-mails, etc. Now, a similar thing is happening to the owners of a small, Mexican family restaurant in suburban Chicagoland, all because they wanted to make sure the majority of their customers felt comfortable dining there. It seems to me the GLBT community is responding to intolerance in kind. I urge La Fiesta Azteca's owners to confront Mr. Andy Thayer about his slanderous claims of "even greater homophobia" and his insinuations that it was a restaurant employee who stole the clipboard signup sheets.


From my own experience, gay men and women seem to want equal treatment. They don't want to feel left out and they want their love to be acknowledged to be as valid as their heterosexual counterparts. However, I think the GLBT community needs to become acquainted with the term "you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar." Gay men and women long for marriage. Not content to be granted "separate but equal" privilegels of a domestic partnership or civil unions, they want marriage, a religious sacrament that is defined as a union between a man and a woman. It's ironic, considering how many gay men and women I know who have as high an opinion about religion as they do of George W. Bush. How does the gay community go about trying to achieve this equality? Perpetrating stereotypes. Whether we like it or not, society perceives our community as one which claims the wholesale rejection of heteronormative behavior, a community with escalating rates of sexually transmitted diseases (implying a disregard for safety or honesty), and a penchant for having anonymous sex, either through bars or the rabid use of the Internet to engage in risky sexual behavior devoid of emotion. I am, of course, not claiming the entire community is guilty of these actions. I know many people will complain about my use of the word "guilty" because many people adhere to some ridiculous notion of relativism in which one group's standards or morals are equal to another's. Regardless of it is the entire community or just a vocal and highly exposed minority, the fact remains: if we want middle America to accept us, we have to start living by the set of morals they do, or at the very least, not spit on them. If our community wants equal rights and equal respect, be prepared to meet the 90% halfway. Who are the 90%? The percentage of the population whose acceptance we have made clear we desperately want. We can't react to intolerance with worse intolerance and violence. This isn't a shouting match. If we truly want society to accept and embrace us, we have to accept, no, I daresay respect, their values and shortcomings. At the end of the day, do you want somebody to treat you equally because they respect you? Or are you content in somebody treating you as an equal only because you destroyed their life, their business, forced them to feel uncomfortable and threatened legal action against them? We all speak for each other, whether we like ir or not. Your actions speak for me and vice versa, because we all belong to the same community... and right now, I don't like what you're saying.

Super Tuesday is coming, Tea Partiers!

It's important to support Tea Party platform candidates for the primary races that are fast approaching. In races across our country, from South Carolina to California, the electorate has a chance to act on the wave of anti-incumbency that is crashing on the shores of America.

Tea Party Myth Dispelled:

Partisan Hypocrisy/Double Standard of the Day

Hurricane Katrina, August 2005:
President Bush was criticized for his slow, seemingly apathetic response to the devast ation in New Orleans. The response of the administration and FEMA was characterizedas "slow."

Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, April 2010:
President Obama takes one week to release a response regarding the oil spill. Since the oil spill began, Obama is planning his 2nd vacation: a return home to Chicago for Memorial Day. Visiting Arlington Cemetary to celebrate the veterans? No, unfortunately. However, he will make time to visit the Gulf for one day inbetween attending a Barbara Boxer fundraiserand a Paul McCartney concert. Hopefully an arduous schedule of golf and basketball won't interfere too much. Speaking of golf: At this point in Obama's presidency, he has played golf 8 times as much as President Bush did. This is ironic considering Cindy "Batshit" Sheehan of Code Pink who claimed that Bush was spending too much time away from his job as President. I'll leave you with a quote from GW:

“I don’t want to some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander-in-chief playing golf… And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal.”

Last I checked, the wars were Obama's now. Why doesn't he give the same concern?

The Arizona Immigration Debacle

I'd like to discuss the goings-on regarding the Arizona Immigration law. One thing I cannot stress enough, and will probably mention with every post, is that I do not represent anybody's viewpoints but my own, and I do not speak for the Tea Party: as I mentioned with my initial post, nobody represents the Tea Party.

I have to admit that part of me is completely baffled by the administration's unwillingness to secure our nation's borders. I also must admit how appalled I was that many people around my age seem to think that the idea of national sovereignty is ridiculous and is a relic of the past. They equate sovereignty with nativism.

I understand why somebody would claim SB2010 is "racist," or that it "profiles" Hispanics. However, the law's most vocal opponents, i.e. Janet Napolitano, Eric Holder, Mexican President Calderon, have all admitted that they have not even read the bill. Aren't they (with the exception of Calderon) on OUR payroll? To steadfastly dismiss our concern - the concern held by ~ 70% of us with regards to the desire of securing our boder - as some arbitrary desire is both arrogant and alarming. The American government is elected by, and paid by, the American taxpayer. Illegal immigrants are not taxpayers. They are taxmoochers. Eric Holder works for us, not for them. I don't care what race illegal immigrants are, the bottom line is that just because we may hurt a few people's feelings, or a few people may perceive their "human rights" being infringed upon, is a worthwhile price to pay to secure our borders. Do you think the thousands of victims of crime wrought by the hands of illegal immigrants had as much a say in their civil rights being violated?

Before these people make kneejerk judgments of the Arizona law, try reading it first. Read the part where it expressly prohibits racial profiling. I keep hearing these stories by Hispanics responding to the Arizona law with anecdotes of "now I can't even walk down the streets in Arizona without being arrested," or "I'm afraid to drive to the post office because they'll arrest me." Arizona police officers are not driving around, arresting every Mexican in the state. However, if they pull over a Hispanic in an unmarked car going 80 mph down a highway which runs through a known smuggling region, and upon being pulled over, doesn't speak English and has no driver's license, and has 10 passengers, none of whom speak English or have driver's licenses, I think that is more than enough probably cause/reasonable doubt.

I just want to leave the open borders crowd with one question. How do you think we solve this? Do you think that because it's been going on for so long and the issue has gotten so large, that we just ignore it now because it would hurt too many peoples' feelings to enforce immigration laws now? What about Kennedy's 1986 promise that after Amnesty 86, it would "never be considered again," and that the borders would henceforth be secure? You think just because we procrastinated 20 years, we lose the right to enforce it now? The drain - economic and on American quality of life - posed by illegal immigration is too great to be ignored any longer. Mexicans don't even extend the same rights to illegal immigrants coming through their Southern border as we do to them. What a double standard. Do as we say, not as we do. It's the liberal MO.

Myths regarding the Tea Party

Predictably, the MSM (mainstream media) - a.k.a. Liberal Shills - have begun a smear campaign against the Tea Party. This smear campaign is very pervasive, and is in some cases very obvious, and in other cases, subtle. Media bias comes in many forms. For example, news stories will often underestimate the size or number of (tea party) protesters. A crowd of many tens of thousands of people will be described as having "one thousand." In other cases, protests will go unreported. Blogger Michelle Malkin does an excellent job, as does Newsbusters.org, in reporting on these discrepancies.

A common misrepresentation is the painting of the Tea Party as "racist." Tea Party protesters are often painted as unilaterally white, middle-aged, middle-class heterosexuals. This common strategy is designed to portray Tea Partiers as nativist, racist homophobes, and attempts to invoke some type of "redneck" stereotype. This could not be further from the truth. Tea Party protests have, without exception, been peaceful demonstrations of society's disdain for overreaching federal government, and they attract a diverse array of people from all backgrounds, colors, preferences and ages. In fact, the ethnic breakdown of several tea party protests have shown that they almost directly correlate to the ethnic breakdown of Americans, which is approximately ~65-70% White, ~12% African American,and ~20% Hispanic. Ironically enough, when looking at MSNBC's roster, 100% are White. Oops!

All those white, racist faces... *sigh*

The racism card is perhaps the most insidious and malignant liberal slander. They use it as some "endgame" label. Races are not allowed to be brought up in any sort of disparaging connotation unless the race is white. Religions, unless Christian, are not allowed to be brought up with any association to something less than glowing. Just remember: the race card is the last resort for the desperate. I'd rather be falsely accused of being a racist than correctly accused of being a socialist.

Origins of the Tea Party

Like many grassroots movements, it's difficult to pinpoint the origin(s) of the Tea Party movement. By its definition, a grassroots movement is the collective manifestation of several independent groups reacting to a common grievance. Its nature is one that lacks organization or clearly defined boundaries.

The original tea party - the Boston Tea Party - was a revolt of the fledgling American colonists against their oppressive British overlords. They were protesting against taxation without representation - the fact that they were forced to pay what they considered exorbitant taxes to the Crown, without having any representation in the British Parliament. The current Tea Party movement is a response to a wide variety of grievances, but can basically be summed up as a frustration with federal government. People believe that the government is too big, is overreaching, is attempting to regulate or get its hands in things that it shouldn't be involved with, and additionally, people think their elected representatives aren't really interested in listening to their concerns regarding these issues. These frustrations transcend party lines, although admittedly, many "Tea Partiers" define themselves as Republican.

The exact origins of the Tea Party movement are not universaly agreed upon. Most people believe that the movement began in earnest in 2009. Groups of bloggers, as well as CNBC's Rick Santelli, called for peaceful Tax Day protests to the Obama administration's proposed high price-tag agenda. While its origins are debated, one thing everybody involved with the Tea Party can agree on is the Obama administration HAS TO REIN IN GOVERNMENT SPENDING.