Can’t a restaurant expel non-buying individuals? Seems easy enough...if gays show up inside the restaurant and start doing this, just demand they buy something or leave.
“Can’t a restaurant expel non-buying individuals?”
Verrrry interesting question. The answer IMO depends on the political culture of the city where protests intended to disrupt the normal transacting of business take place.
The first “Alinsky tactic” I recall was for protesters to silently enter a business and build up a crowd that made it difficult for the regular customers. When challenged, protesters would insist they had not yet decided what to buy. If the protesters were minorities, they immediately accused the storeowner of “racism”.
Local politics determined whose side the police would take when they were summoned. In liberal cities the advantage tended to lie with protesters who were gay or Muslim or black or lately, OWS.
Now, here in South Carolina the authorities will defer to the businesses. “Officer, I asked these people to either buy something or leave, and they refused” will usually suffice to set the forces of law & order in motion. The state capital is said to be especially gay-unfriendly. Local Muslims are seen but not heard. And the Southern culture itself has kept race relations generally cordial.
The nearest Chick Fil-A is next door to the University of S.C. main campus. Once a couple of protesters held up a sign nearby that proclaimed “If you’re eating Chick Fil-A. you’re eating anti-gay!” This only served to fill the restaurant parking lot & created a spillover crowd inside. The protesters saw they had only caused a positive backlash, so they left.
Gay kiss-ins are rumored but people here do not like being disturbed while eating and the response would more than likely be “Let’s roll!”