As you may have heard, Minnesota-based multi-national General Mills endorsed marriage equality and stated they opposed the so-called "Sanctity of Marriage" constitutional amendment that will prevent marriage equality (we already have laws preventing it). The evangelicals and others behind the amendment weren't going to take this lying down (or in any other position). So they decided to organize a boycott of General Mills products and protest at company headquarters.
They want people to buy General Mills products and bring them to the protest site after which they would donate the products to food shelves. I'm not sure how this hurts General Mills exactly, but I wanted to find out how the protest/boycott was going.
So on my lunch break, I drove over to the General Mills campus near the intersections of Hwys. 169 and 394 in Golden Valley, MN. The protest is located on a public park across the street from the General Mills campus. I walked around a bit and snapped some pictures and walked back to my car.
Click on the image to see a larger version.
As I was getting in I saw a blond, male protester hustling over toward me. Maybe he was one of the organizers or leaders of the protest.
"I saw you were taking pictures, who are you here for?" he asked.
"MN Progressive Project," I replied.
"I've copyrighted my image," he stated. "If you use it I'll sue you for infringement."
"Go ahead," I retorted. "I could use the publicity."
"I saw that you were taking pictures from across the street," he continued. "That's private property and its against the law."
"No big deal," I replied. "I've got some from on the street [which is public property]."
This was an odd threat as why would General Mills help the movement they just publicly came out against by helping the opposition harass someone taking pictures for the sole purpose of embarrassing them. Anyway, apparently this is how this particular right wing christian thinks.
And he stepped aside so I could drive off.
"Take it up the ass," he called after me as I drove away.