In Immigrant Areas, a Culture Clash Over Gay Marriage

[Gerald]

Molly Blooms, a Victorian-accented Irish bar in Sunnyside, Queens, recently raffled off a free same-sex wedding reception, with a three-hour open bar, a D.J., a photographer and a horse-drawn gilded carriage to deliver the winning couple to the festivities. The bar’s owner thought the idea would be good for business and for the largely working-class and immigrant neighborhood.

But some in the community disagreed.

Neighbors said they would boycott the bar. Bloggers posted reports of past health violations there. Larry Yang, the Korean-American owner of a hardware store next door, said he resented such a public promotion of same-sex marriage. He said many among the large number of Korean-American Christians in Queens felt similarly but feared that if they spoke out they would be demonized by a liberal majority.

“If that horse-drawn carriage rides by my store, I will make sure my kids do not see it,” Mr. Yang, 45, said. “I am worried about what kind of message gay marriage is sending.”

The legalization of same-sex marriage in New York State has been embraced by many in the city. But in some neighborhoods heavily populated by immigrants from countries where homosexuality is less accepted, the idea is stirring feelings of unease or, at times, outright disgust.

Sunnyside has been transformed in recent decades, first by immigration, and more recently by urban professionals priced out of Manhattan. As in some other parts of the city, same-sex marriage has laid bare the clash between the social conservatism of many immigrants and the values of the often wealthier and more liberal newcomers to the neighborhood.

Many immigrants in Sunnyside are Muslims from Turkey, where the military, the guardian of the country’s secular state, regards homosexuality as a disorder. On a recent day on 46th Street, a group of men hunched over Turkish newspapers next to a mosque in a part of the neighborhood that includes kebab shops, a Jewish community center, a Romanian restaurant and a Russian hairdresser.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/08/ny...e&ref=nyregion


Note: September 7, 2011