The Coffee Bean &
Tea Leaf, the ubiquitous West Coast coffeehouse
chain, doesn't care too much for gay websites,
apparently. According to a post on UniteTheFight.org, the
caffeine purveyor's Wi-Fi service blocks LGBT
websites -- at least at one Los Angeles location -- including
Pam's House Blend, a blog heavy on news but nil on nudity
or any actual sexual content.
The Coffee Bean &
Tea Leaf, the ubiquitous West Coast coffeehouse
chain, doesn't care too much for gay websites,
apparently. According to a post on
UniteTheFight.org
, the caffeine purveyor's Wi-Fi service blocks
LGBT websites -- at least at one Los Angeles location --
including Pam's House Blend, a blog heavy on news but nil
on nudity or any actual sexual content.
Phillip Minton of Unite
the Fight -- a group trying to overturn California's
Proposition 8 -- had booted up his laptop on Thursday
at a Coffee Bean location in the Beverly Center area
of Los Angeles and was informed he couldn't access
sites like Pam's House Blend and Towleroad due to
"sexuality." According to commenters at Unite the
Fight's website, ex-gay sites for groups like Exodus and
Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays are accessible on Coffee
Bean's Wi-Fi service.
In his post, Minton
wrote, "Naturally, I wrote a rather angry e-mail [to
Coffee Bean's Wi-Fi provider] telling them they need to do
a better job determining what is porn or 'adult' from
what is a news or editorial blog. If I typed in
"heterosexual," would the sites pulled up be blocked?
I doubt it."
The Wi-Fi provider,
OpenDNS, responded to Minton with the following e-mail:
"We only provide network admins with the tools to block
content on their networks, we as a company do not block anyone
for any reason. If this user (i.e.business) chooses to block a
particular type of content on their network, we cannot
interfere. You however, as a consumer, have every right to
boycott their business for the way they choose to block content
on their networks."
The Coffee Bean &
Tea Leaf opened its first store in Los Angeles in 1963 and
now operates hundreds of locations in
California, Arizona, Nevada, Hawaii, Asia, Australia, the
Middle East, and Mexico. A favorite of the celebrity set,
Coffee Bean products are often seen in the hands of
stars in tabloid photos. Coffee Bean representatives
did not return calls for comment.
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