Entertainer Jay Leno joined leaders of L.A.’s LGBT communities and numerous activists and concerned citizens outside the city’s famed Beverly Hills Hotel today for an organized rally to protest the Hassanal Bolkiah, the 67-year-old Sultan of Brunei. Demonstrators are protesting the Sultan, who owns both the hotel affectionately known as the Pink Palace and the Bel Air Hotel, for his country’s savage penal code which calls for the amputation and stoning of people for various offenses including homosexual acts, adultery, sodomy and extramarital sexual relations.
“What year is this? 1814? Come on people, it’s 2014,” Leno, a longtime ally to the LGBT communities, said at the rally. “Evil flourishes when good people do nothing, and that is pretty much what this is.”
Lorrie Jean, CEO of the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center, roused the crowd by further blasting the 67-year-old dictator.
“His policies of murdering and torturing gay and lesbian people and women have no place in a civilized society,” she said. “We need to keep attention on his barbaric policies and we call for all of civilized society to shun him. No decent person, or government or business should have anything to do with a man who promotes murder and torture.” She encouraged everyone to stop doing business with the Beverly Hills Hotel and Hotel Bel Air and all properties owned by the Sultan immediately.
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Watch Jean deliver her speech below.
michael mellor
Thank you, Jay.
michael mellor
Lorrie Jean’s speech was wonderful. You go, girl!!!!
IvanPH
So when will Jay Leno apologize for more than two decades of ridiculing gay people on his monologues as a talk show host?
Mezaien
I would like to apologize to humanity for all the inhuman behavior of the biggest F.U.C.K.E.D up criminal organization in the world call Christianity. Sorry Jews, and Muslims. Help us to fights and destroys them.
Chevelter
I would like to apologize to the staff and management of The Beverly Hills Hotel for this misguided boycott. The hotel has many gay people working there and management has been a good friend of the gay community for many years, donating to LGBT causes and welcoming same sex weddings. The staff is who will suffer, not the oil billionaire. This hotel is a speck in his world holdings.
Daniel-Reader
The LGBTA community, which numbers in the billions, should simply punish politicians who commit mass human rights violations.
EddieSimmers
Ok, Good job Jay. But how is it someone of this man’s nature even has been allowed to own anything in this country? I’m sorry there should be some laws that protect American soil from this kind of people owning anything in this country.. That just pisses me off.
Polaro
From what I’ve read the Sultan and all his brothers are adulterers and sodomites. When do we get to stone them?
Thanks Jay! And, yes, the boycott is warranted.
Spike
1%ers could careless about gay rights.
James Hart
@IvanPH: I think he did this for the publicity. I guess after losing his show he needed something to feel relevant again.
James Hart
@Mezaien: The Sultan is a Muslim, not a Christian.
DickieJohnson
@Mezaien: What we need to “fights and destroys” is overt ignorance and behavioral retardation of several posters on this site!
Billysees
@DickieJohnson:
Hehehe…….Lol…….how true……
Mezaien
DickieJohnson, James Hart, You guys are right! the question is what are we doing about it?. As white African American, I grow up in South Africa, Apartheid I know what it`s like.
Kangol
Boycott, boycott, boycott.
Don’t let up! The Sultan isn’t living in the last three centuries, it’s the 21st. He can change the laws in his country with a decree, or sell that hotel. He has a choice.
We do too!