I saw a FB group today for an Occupy Tim Horton's movement, after a lesbian couple was apparently asked to leave the bench in front of a Tim Hortons in Ontario this week. I saw posts calling for people across Canada to protest in front of their local Tim Horton's restaurants from coast to coast in a joint appeal to get Tim Hortons to stop allowing franchize owners to discriminate against LGBT people. The protest for that particular restaurant (owned by a christian pastor apparently) is to be held tomorrow but I saw lots of posts calling for a Canada-wide Occupy-style protest.
Well gee I hope they don't hit my local timmies cos the very outwardly flamboyantly gay guy they have working there might find it rather amusing. This kid (he is in his early 20s) is probably the most outwardly gay man in the whole city. I've certainly never seen the likes of him around here lol. Most move to Calgary or Vancouver (including my own brother, so dont get your knickers in a twist thinking im all homophobic and stuff). Im saying that my local timmies, in small town ALBERTA no-less, has a guy working there that might as well be waving a rainbow flag above his head with a big I'm GAY button on his shirt for the one or two people a year who don't notice that he is... rather gay :) This guy sings little songs to people when giving them change or taking their orders, he even has managed to sneak in wearing his fake boobs on occasion, and his name tag is always changed to something fanciful and fun instead of his given name. Ive actually known of this boy since he was a wee young man in my daycare center and 15 years ago we knew we had living proof for naysayers = that people are born gay or straight or bi and that's the way it is. We knew when he was only 4 years old that we were witnessing a young gay man growing up. He sang all day long then too actually.
But anyway I am getting a little off track. My point is, because of what happened at this one store, there are people calling for protests at EVERY tim hortons, because they did not like the official response from head office. Well I am sorry but I bet there isn't even a timmies in Toronto that has as flamboyant an employee as we do here in redneck land. And he works at THE businest timmies in town. And has been there over 3 years at least so far.
so before you decide to get out there and occupy tim hortons with the rest of these people, make sure your local chapter really is as discriminating and evil as is being portrayed. If a small alberta city can survive with the gayest guy in the world handing out donuts, im pretty sure there are a hell of a lot more - and this is STAFF, not patrons. Perhaps there is more to this story than has been told. Just educate yourselves before jumping on the bandwagon.
But I would actually like to see it happen here - and see this boy come out in his staff uniform with all his little fancy flashy bracelets and earrings and necklaces, hold up a protest sign, and say [sing] 'oops gotta go boyzzzz, my break is over' and head back into work. Now THAT would be a sight to see!
Well written. Oh, I suspect there's a lot more to this story than is being told. This was a complete setup designed to solicit the reaction and media attention that followed. There was clearly a lot more going on than hugs and pecks on the cheek.
ReplyDeleteApparently the couple involved was going at it in a way that would elicit protests from any parent. Also, it was also apparently not obvious that they were lesbian. Most commentators are going with the 'don't make out at Timmys, no matter what your sexuality'.
ReplyDeleteOnly the people who were there know what actually happened. I have read different accounts, such as one saying they only shared a quick kiss and were not making out because they were there with 7 family members like a brother, parents, perhaps a nephew and/or niece etc and were not 'making out' at all. But who knows.
ReplyDeleteAll I CAN say is that one of my local Timmies has signs up all over it saying there is a 20 minute limit on staying there. It's so busy and in the downtown location where a lot of people just hang out and take up a table all day long, they set up the 20 min rule several years ago to try to deal with it. Outside, there are signs up saying no loitering because so many people were just hanging around the doors for hours on end... similar to when I was a teen and the local 7-11 we hung out at put up No Loitering signs as well. That way they could kick us off the parking lot if we hung around too long. So this Timmies in Ontario could have had something similar as well for all we know. Maybe that supposed group of 9 people were hanging out there for ages and the owner was just waiting for an excuse to get rid of them, whether he knew they were a lesbian couple or not.
I'm not going to pretend that I am ignorant to there being homophobic people around the world because I know for fact there are. My brother is gay and moved from our small city because he felt he could not live his lifestyle without people pointing the finger at him all the time. I have a distant cousin who is gay and in his tiny little Sask town, local preachers post scathing anti-gay things in the paper! So I know it's out there - however this kind of Occupy Timmie's campaign jumping up to go coast-to-coast when each restaurant is different, along with it's franchise owners, just seems over the top to me. Especially when the vast majority of the people jumping on the bandwagon have no clue at all what really happened.
If that owner kicked them out purely for being lesbian and having a chaste smooch, then he can deal with the fallout from the press this has received - but should all restaurants have to deal with that same fallout? I think some people have too much time on their hands and need to find something actually worthwhile to do.