El Coyote: An LA Restaurant Gets Negative Attention Because of Prop 8

About 70 people gathered at the legendary El Coyote Cafe in Los Angeles' Fairfax District Wednesday morning for a community sit down/brunch to hear Marjorie Christoffersen speak about why she gave $100 to Yes on 8 via the Mormon Church. Marjorie, a lifelong Mormon, is the niece of El Coyote's founder and daughter of the current owner. She receives a salary as a floor manager. El Coyote has 89 employees, many of whom are gay.

Despite the staff delivering chips, salsa and drinks to the waiting guests, tensions were high when Arnaldo Archila, a long time manager and bartender, spoke about Ms. Christofferson and her views:

We don’t share her views as the management. They don’t press us to do anything that we don’t want to do, and we never talk about politics or religion. I don’t understand why we got connected to something going on at the top.

Well, El Coyote is involved because 10% of what Marjorie makes from El Coyote goes to the Mormon Church as required  tithe, and that $100 she gave to Yes on 8 was in part money paid by gay clientele--and her income was used to strip their rights.

Then Marjorie herself spoke, shaking and barely able to stand, lieterally supported by her daughters who helped hold her upright as she read from a prepared statement. And it was sickening and saddening to see how her faith had leveraged her salvation and forced her to disconnect her love for her customers, and allowed her, despite that professed love, to deny them a civil right: