By Diane SilverTossed out of a restaurant for a little peck? You betcha! It can happen easily if you're a same-sex couple. That's just one of the ways that gays and lesbians lack even the most basic of civil rights.
The latest example comes from an IHOP restaurant in Grandview, Mo., where a short kiss between a lesbian couple lead to a confrontation with the restaurant manager. The report comes from Mike Hendricks in the Kansas City Star.
So later the manager confronted them in the lobby and told them to get out.This kind of incident and far worse problems on the job are why we need to pass laws protecting people from discrimination based on sexual orientation. At this time, there are no federal laws protecting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered citizens. In Kansas, only Lawrence provides citywide protection. In Missouri only a handful of cities have anti-discrimination ordinances.The way Blair (Funk) remembers it: “He said, ‘I have to tell you, we’ve had some complaints about public displays of affection, and we’re a family restaurant, we can’t accept it, and we won’t accept it.’
“The way he worded it was like, We don’t accept you.”
Right now the Kansas Equality Coalition is pushing for such a law in Senate Bill 163. In Missouri, PROMO is pushing to pass House Bill 819. Hendricks writes that it's time to turn these bills into laws, and I wholeheartedly agree.
