LOS ANGELES (AP) – Letters containing a suspicious white powder were sent Thursday to Mormon temples in Los Angeles and Salt Lake City that were the sites of protests against the church’s support of California’s gay marriage ban.
The temple in the Westwood area of Los Angeles was evacuated before a hazardous materials crew determined the envelope’s contents were not toxic, said FBI spokesman Jason Pack.
The temple in downtown Salt Lake City, where the church is based, received a similar envelope containing a white powder that spilled onto a clerk’s hand.
The room was decontaminated and the envelope taken by the FBI for testing. The clerk showed no signs of illness, but the scare shut down a building at Temple Square for more than an hour, said Scott Freitag, a spokesman for the Salt Lake City Fire Department.
None of the writing on the envelope was threatening, and the church received no calls or messages related to the package, Freitag said.
Protests in recent days have targeted the Mormon church, which encouraged its members to fight the recently passed amendment banning gay marriage in California.
Authorities are looking into several theories on who sent the letters and why, Pack said.
Anthrax mailed as a white powder to Washington lawmakers and media outlets killed five people and sickened 17 just weeks after the attacks of September 11, 2001. Periodic hoaxes modeled on the anthrax mailings have popped up since then but usually prove harmless.
The activist gay message to California voters is don’t donate, don’t vote, or we’ll come after you.
The L.A. Times website has put online a searchable directory of Proposition 8 donors that is being used to target and intimidate voters. This search tool is providing names of good people to gay rights activists all over the state. Not only does this index provide your personal name, city and zip code, but it also includes your employer and position. The L.A. Times is providing information on any donor, even donors of petty pocket change.
Just this week, lists like this were used by gay activists to target a man in Sacramento who gave money to the marriage campaign out of his own private funds. Scott Eckern lost his job at Music Circus because of the threats and intimidation used against the business he’d been with for the last 25 years.
Another victim, Margorie Christoffersen, a manager of Coyote Mexican Cafe in L.A. was harassed and intimidated over her $100 donation to the marriage initiative. Coyote was pressured into giving 10,000.00 to pro gay causes in order to avoid a boycott, that is threatening to continue.
These databases are public information, but given how they are currently being used, to thwart, stifle and intimidate voters and donors, the L.A. Times should pull down their directory to prevent it from being used to target fellow Californians.
Having an opinion is not against the law. Donating to a cause is not against the law. Punishing neighbors, friends and businesses for their participation in the electoral process is unconscionable.
–In Los Angeles, the Times lost more than 40,000 daily copies. Daily circulation there was down 5.1% to 773,884. Sunday declined 6.0% to 1,101,981. Let them know how you feel. Perhaps they’ll listen.
Los Angeles Times
Mailing Address:
202 W. 1st St.
Los Angeles, CA 90012
Phone: (213) 237-5000
Fax: (213) 237-7679
Readers’ Representative Office E-mail: readers.rep@latimes.com Telephone message line: (877) 554-4000 Fax: (213) 237-3535 Mailing address: 202 W. 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90012
El Coyote Employee Targeted for $100 Prop 8 Donation
An employee of El Coyote Restaurant, Marjorie Christoffersen, tried to defend and protect her job today. Christoffersen, who is also a Mormon, was shocked to learn she was the most recent target of gay rights activists who are threatening to boycott her restaurant over her private donation to the Yes on 8 campaign.
In an attempt to placate the activists, Christoffersen offered a free lunch at the restaurant to provide a friendly atmosphere in which to talk over differences and smooth rifts.
Gay Rights Vigilantes: Next Stop? El Coyote
“I have been sick at heart that anyone has been offended by me. I have family, friends, employees from the gay community who are treasured people in my life. I have been a member of the Mormon church all my life. I responded to their request with my personal donation.
For years the El Coyote has financially and generously supported the gay community and its charities.
Please be my guest for an early lunch Wed., Nov. 12th, @ 11:00 am and allow me to personally speak with you.”
From Beetlebabee–The following account is from the Huffington Post, a blog that is dedicating it’s pages to furthering these targeted attacks on supporters of proposition 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.And that’s why there’s protest called for 7pm tonight.
Then Marjorie herself spoke, shaking and barely able to stand, literally 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:
I am sick at heart that I have offended anyone in the gay community…you are treasured to me…I’ve been a member of the Mormon Church all my life and I responded to their request. This was a personal donation, not the El Coyote’s. In like fashion, any employee can support anything of its choosing…The restaurant does not support any political group…I don’t know of another place on earth where such diversity exists in harmony, joy and mutual respect. I know boycotts are planned…It saddens me that my faith will keep you away from the Coyote. I cannot and I will not, no matter what, change my love and respect for you and your views.
For video footage of Marjorie’s statement, and the attendees’ responses, click here Marjorie took only one question, asked by Sam Page, an ex-Mormon: Would she personally make an equal donation to the campaigns to repeal Proposition 8? Before Marjorie could answer, manager Billy Scheoppner announced that El Coyote would make two $5,000 contributions, one to the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center and other to the Lambda Legal Defense Fund. Schoeppner, who is openly gay, asked for suggestions to avert a boycott.
Page persevered, asking his question again, and Marjorie replied:
I cannot change a lifetime of faith.
Then one of her daughters added: It’s her personal choice…she loves you guys and she loves this place…The church does not tell you how to vote, they did not say you must vote on Prop 8. They supported and donated to the Yes on 8 situation, campaign.
Watch the Intolerance and Intimidation of this Lady As it Happened
A protest planned for outside El Coyote will happen tomorrow evening.
