Should we boycott gay businesses?

Oh, the old gay marriage debate once again. These are always good. Now to hit on the original theory that gay business is fair game for a boycott. The answer to this is yes. All business is susceptible to a boycott. The key to making an effective boycott is to have a vast number of people who agree with the reason to boycott. In this case, I can’t see more than 4 or 5 people saying, “Yeah, lets boycott those homosexuals.”

The reason such a boycott would fail is because the underlying principle of the action is silly. A few homosexuals protested in an aggressive manner to try and help pass some legislation. It is then a far leap to want to boycott all companies that are in some way shape or form “gay.”

The whole reason to call this boycott is because some people feel that the homosexuals who demonstrated were the first group to start the aggressive behavior. To this point I must state that homosexuals where discriminated against long before they vocalized their anger.

Here is where some people try and say that homosexuals are not discriminated against in regards to marriage. This is not so.

The people who believe that marriage (when relating to the state) is solely based on a man and a woman are wrong in this assumption. A long time ago someone thought it was a smart idea to make marriage not only are religious practice, but also a governmental institution that comes along with certain rights (I believe that the state should stay out of religion, but I digress).

For a long time it was the norm that only men and women could get married, but after the civil rights movements happened this all changed. Government legislation was passed stating that the government could not discriminate and disparage the rights of an individual based on their religion, race, creed, and so forth. Sexual orientation is one of those classifications that fall under “protected status.”

It is in this way that the state cannot legally say that homosexuals can’t get married when it comes to the state institution. The private church has a right to say “We will not marry homosexuals,” but the state doesn’t have this same right.

The religious people who complain about marriage being between only men and women hurt their own position when they mixed a religious ceremony with governmental practices.

Sure, and why your at it, boycot any business run by blond people with grey eyes, left handed and are not able to carry a tune...Or be honest and just state your a bigot. Or an idiot. Most likely both. In my experience I never met a bigot, in the flesh whose IQ was any greater then a potted plant.

this would be ideal conversation in a store:

hello, how can i help you today?
hmh, are you gay? because if you are i won't buy this.
?????

in a time when world economy is going down there are people who take interests in who's gay and who is not.
i will always go to businesses where i get best service. getting job perfectly done is my primary target. and if the owner has pink shirt and has boyfriend - i don't care, i don't swing with my business partbers.

what if all the black people boycoott white business?
what if all south america boycott christian products?
german products??? they had hitler
japan products? nazi ally

i'm not suprised that world economy is going down because when i see thinking about gay in business... who cares. just get the job done perfectly.

reply to post by tator3

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The disgusting thing about this post is the fact that people gave you stars. Hater.

[edit on 2-12-2008 by jsobecky]

Boycott is impossible and not the answer.

Expose every instance of this rude behavior and let the people decide. Are the gays cutting their own throat or furthering their cause?

I will listen to any reasoned argument for your cause, but when you start acting like a drunken teenager you lose my respect and support.

I know what I'd do to someone who might run a mother with kids in the car off the road because of a bumper sticker, though..

That kind of attitude makes me wonder what is happening to America.

Am I the only one that sees something wrong with the idea of doing anything to any group of people based on the actions of a few of them? How about you treat lawbreakers and jerks like lawbreakers and jerks, and good people like good people. I am not sure why people are so worried about who is gay or not when it is so easy to see who is an ass and who is not.

Boycott gay businesses? I think people need to grow up already.
I don't understand what the big deal is. I could care less what someone does in thier bedroom.

EVERYONE is entitled to Life,LIberty and The pursuit of Happiness.

They aren't hurting anyone, but by making marriage illegal it hurts them.

I give up. I'm just going to boycott everybody for everything. What difference does it make anyway? As long as we're looking at things from one narrow perspective, we might as well make everyone else with any other perspective suffer.

Fortunately, it won't be long before I die because I'm going to run out of my own personal air to breathe before I run out of goods that the evil others have produced.

What a futile attitude. Is this what humanity has come to? Really? I hope someone will beam me up soon. I wanna go home.

Your gay classmate is right, you do sound like a 'meathead' in much the same way as he talks "flagrent".

You seem to place a lot of worth in a lot of worth in machismo with the "wuss" comment and the idea that he couldn't do "push-ups". Is that how you measure people generally? With a 'wussiness' scale and an ability to do push-ups? You sad, sad man.

To me, the way you describe yourself is as "flagrent" as your gay classmates only in a different way and slightly more disturbing.



Does Martin really know how you treat other gay people?

I'm not personally keen on loud people in general, whether they're gay or straight (in a lot of cases, how am to tell anyway?) however your intolerance is bizarre. I don't feel the need to 'call out' screaming queens. Why do you? I'm wondering what that actually says about you. Is it just religious-based bigotry or something else.

reply to post by Jim Scott

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I pity your ignorance, Jim Scott, but it is your ignorance that makes you not fully responsible for your beliefs. It is good for you, then, that you are ignorant, for if you were a rational man you would surely be condemned.

Bean

reply to post by Jim Scott

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I'm ok with polygamy. except when it's used to coerce unwilling 14 year olds into marrying some 40 year old.

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False Dilemma , you can't have it both ways though, If homosexuals hadn't said "same sex" marriage making sexual "orientation" the issue of our alleged prejudice, then you might have had a point

But alas that is already case law

Personally - I'm not boycotting any gay business. Actually I don't even know of any gay businesses I use. A person's sexual orientation doesn't mean much to me. I work with lots of homosexual people and its just not a difference I pay much mind to. I would rather work with gay people than finger pointing religous types. The difference here is the gay people are not judging my life and trying to change me.

I don't know if homosexuality is wrong. If it is wrong in God's eyes thats not for me to judge so I won't. I don't agree with the law passed in California, but not being from there I know my opinion doesn't mean anything.

One thing I do know is that the people of California have spoken. The people's voice should not be overturned by a court. The people supporting prop 8 just won the campaign this time.

Sorry dude, but the person who said that gays won't be affected by a boycott is probably right.

Most large metro areas have a gay yellow pages listing, so you might check to see if you can locate such a thing in your area, but from some of the things you have said, I can almost guarantee you aren't in such an area, for one, and that you also wouldn't be frequenting these establishments anyway.

And the gay emo imbalance comment, among others? Sounds like your own fear and hatred shining through.

Maybe, just maybe gay people are regular folks who do all the normal things most people do, and lead regular, boring lives, much like many other people out there.

And maybe they have been subjected to prejudice and attacks from paranoid people who think that gay is "contagious".

So, if a group of gay protesters are angry at the ones who have attempted to deprive them of basic rights, then who can really blame them?

reply to post by Jim Scott

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What I have seen is a lot of idiots voting to remove a right from a minority. That is not acceptable in any democracy.
You cannot confuse these issues.

A democracy vote stands when that vote is for leadership, the improvement of life for all, the betterment of society for all. The majority voting to remove a right from a minority WHEN IT DOESN'T AFFECT THEM is not democracy.

That is the fact.
Whether the majority voted for it or not is not the issue.
The majority should not have even been given the choice to vote on it.
This was a religion-led campaign of hatred, misinformation and propaganda supported by the state, and in any democracy you CANNOT COMBINE RELIGION AND STATE IN ANY ASPECT OF LEADERSHIP!

(Sorry about all the capitals, but a lot of people don't seem to understand simple English, and I don't know how else to make the facts heard!)

It is no different than the majority voting to remove the rights of black people to vote, or deny Hispanics employment, or deny women the right to choose.

Example for you...
A Nazi organisation find massive funding for an ad campaign to remove all rights of Jewish people. They gain support from leading Nazi business owners, Nazi sympathizers in public office etc.
They send their message far and wide and then a public vote (by a massive number of ignorant people bombarded by such propaganda) takes place and it passes.
Would you accept that it is right because the majority voted on it?


If you answered yes, you do not belong in a democratic country, you belong in 1930's Germany.

Irregardless of your personal views on homosexuality, a democratic nation supports the right for all of its citizens to live under equal law.

As for the subject of this thread...

A boycott of business is how things are done in a civilized society. It is not an act of war to choose one business over another.
It is a choice to support socially aware and responsible companies over and above ones that choose to publicly abuse the democratic process and ones which support dictatorial rule.

I would not use a company that supports the notion of removing the rights of citizens, whoever those citizens are, and whether I agree with their choices or not.
Just as I would choose an environmentally responsible company over one that is known to pollute the environment.

They all took part in an unjust and unacceptable vote to remove the rights of a minority. It is only fair (and somewhat minor in comparison) to refuse to buy from companies that played a part in that ridiculous scenario.

As for the unreasonable behavior expressed by some parties, this is to be expected.
In all honesty, do you really think people are going to shut up and do nothing when their rights are slowly taken away by the idiotic masses who don't understand democracy and civil liberties?
Don't you think they have a right to be angry?

I can tell you what I would be feeling if I were living there.
I'd feel angry at the community, angry at the stupidity of people.
I'd feel infuriated that people don't understand that they have implemented and supported a dictatorial system of rule without even thinking about it or becoming concerned.
I'd fear that my neighbor is WILLING to remove all my rights as a citizen, while smiling at me in the morning.
I'd fear that my closest friends and colleagues are stupid enough to have been drawn into this dictatorial rule without questioning it, and that they are therefore Homophobic, don't care about my life and have turned against me.

And if I didn't have the choice to leave there for a more open and accepting society, I'd fight back too. With everything legal I had at my disposal.
I'd boycott businesses, I'd remove friends, colleagues and even family from my life if I knew that they supported this. Not just because of their decision, but because of their stupidity for not understanding the meaning of liberty for all.
I'd be out there protesting every day, and doing whatever I could to annoy and upset the Homophobic citizens disguising their hatred as "democracy at work".
I'd be as openly and enthusiastically gay as gay can be.

I'd do anything I could legally to annoy and disgust those who are so mind numbingly, ridiculously, insanely ignorant to have taken part in this fiasco of a vote.

The businesses who supported this deserve to lose out.
The people who voted for this deserve to lose friends, colleagues and family.
The state deserves to lose the support of a large number of its citizens.
The religious groups who bankrolled this propaganda deserve to receive the hatred of those it abuses.
The public who voted for this deserve to be ashamed and embarrassed.

And the Homophobes deserve to be outed for what they really are.