Gays Ejected From Texas Restaurant For Kissing

The El Paso Times is reporting that on June 29th a group of gays were kicked out of a restaurant for “kissing”.

“EL PASO — Two gay men kissed at a Chico’s Tacos restaurant, prompting guards to eject them and a police officer to endorse their ouster.Civil-rights lawyers say the security staff was out of line. Police, though, contend that a business such as a restaurant can refuse service to anybody, any time.”

“It was a simple kiss on the lips,” said Carlos Diaz de Leon, a gay man who was part of the group.

De Leon quoted one of the guards as saying he didn’t allow “that faggot stuff” in the restaurant.”

De Leon then called the police, but when they came they wanted to hear the security guard’s story first. The cop then advised De Leon that it was illegal to be gay in Texas. He said that the entire group could be cited for homosexual conduct.

The El Paso times is also reporting that the city council are denoucing the conduct, and hoping for better training of police.

“Briana Stone, a lawyer with the Paso del Norte Civil Rights Project, disagreed.

She said the city anti-discrimination ordinance protects people on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation in public places. Perhaps more troubling, she said, was that the police officer chose not to enforce that ordinance and might have contributed to discrimination.

“This is such a blatant refusal to uphold the law on account of discrimination,” she said. “The result is devastating. The Police Department is allowing that and even participating in it by refusing to enforce an anti-discrimination ordinance, which is what their job is.”

Lisa Graybill, legal director for the ACLU of Texas, said that businesses can ask patrons to leave for lewd conduct, but that those standards would have to apply to all customers.

“If a straight couple wouldn’t have gotten kicked out for it,” she said, “a gay couple shouldn’t.”