Saturday, November 05, 2011

Peter Lassen Brings His Homophobic Bigotry To Los Feliz, Update

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Thursday night we broke the very local story about a virulently anti-gay family buying a health food store in Los Feliz Village, between Los Feliz and Silverlake, two of Los Angeles' most gay-friendly neighborhoods. The Lassen family-- and Lassen's Natural Foods-- was notorious just north of L.A. last year when they poured tens of thousands of dollars into the Mormon effort to make same sex marriage unconstitutional.

The last part of the post somehow just disappeared into the ether. And-- doesn't this always happen-- I got tons of questions about the points in that last paragraph. First and foremost was the question, "did you buy anything in the store?" From my Facebook page:


Simple answer: I was holding a container of blueberries when I put 2 + 2 together and immediately replaced it and walked out of the store. There's no possibility I would ever buy anything in such a place under any circumstances. I asked some stranger working there if they kept any of the old employees. He said, "Look around, we kept almost all of them." I looked. There wasn't one familiar face. Just a lot of strangers... like people who look like they're from Lassen County.

The other big question was why the Mormons are so anti-gay. To be honest, the Mormons have been victims of bigotry-- often brutally-- since their religion started up in the 1830s. And many Mormons don't want anything to do with bigotry. John Amato-- the blogosphere's foremost expert on Mormonism (he watches Big Love)-- told me that Joseph Smith insisted that the Mormon Church he founded was "a progressive church." Even if millions of Mormons don't want any truck with the anti-gay bigotry, the Church elders made a deal with the far right Evangelicals-- the primary tormentors of Mormons-- and it was like making their bones, Mafia style, on an attack against gay people. The Mormons I know personally aren't part of that. The Lassen family very much is.

UPDATE

There's now a petition circulating in the neighborhood. In part:
Los Feliz & nearby Silver Lake are neighborhoods that overwhelmingly support freedom and equality. Lassen's, the company which recently took over the Nature Mart health food store on Hillhurst Ave., exercised its freedom to spend about $30,000 to help pass Prop 8 which took away the freedom of others, stripping equal rights from same-sex couples who simply want to marry the person they love.

Of course Lassen's should be free to spend their money in support of their beliefs, but a huge number of local residents (of all backgrounds and orientations) don't want our money being used to promote discriminatory laws. We plan to exercise our freedom by not giving ANY money to Lassen's and by telling our neighbors why.

To the Lassen family: If someone ever tries to pass a law restricting your right to practice Mormonism, we'll be right alongside you in defending your freedom.

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3 Comments:

At 9:27 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

All of these religions hate TEH HORRIBLE GAY because gay people, historically, don't reproduce. New vulnerable minds must constantly be produced or the religious memeplexes won't be copied and spread. This is why men in funny hats constantly fuss about what's going on between women's legs: religion can't survive unless it is actively propagated.

 
At 11:08 AM, Blogger opit said...

I've repeatedly lost all or part of Blogger posts - usually when I'm editing the post and/or putting in Zemanta content.
Hatemogering is sold to people with their media intake. Some sources might surprise you. Check out the questions asked of Democratic candidates http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFabLp-Jcbg&feature=related

 
At 4:48 PM, Anonymous me said...

why the Mormons are so anti-gay

It's not "Mormons", and it's not "anti-gay". It's "religion" and "anti-sex", at least anti- any sex outside their control.

It's all about power. Sex is so basic, that control over our sex lives implies control over every other aspect of our lives. THAT is the reason religions are so adamant that no non-approved sex occur.

Re-read 1984 and pay particular attention to The Party's attitude toward sex. As Orwell said in that book:

When you make love you're using up energy; and afterwards you feel happy and don't give a damn for anything. They can't bear you to feel like that. They want you to be bursting with energy all the time. All this marching up and down and cheering and waving flags is simply sex gone sour. If you're happy inside yourself, why should you get excited about Big Brother and the Three-Year Plans and the Two Minutes Hate and all the rest of their bloody rot?

 

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