To: Jennifer Chrisler, Executive Director, Family Equality Council, Lee Swislow, Executive Director, Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, and William Forrest, Co-Chair, National Gay & Lesbian Task Force Foundation
When LGBT Members' Petitions Hurt More Than Help
In response to a number of movements among the LGBT community to boycott or otherwise assert its influence against perceived "aggressors" in a way that oversteps the bounds of moral correctness and actually hurts the cause more than helps, this petition is to be sent to the leaders of high-profile LGBT campaigns asking them to focus on the real issues. If a company or individual does not wish to print a picture of a gay couple on its product then it has every right to make that choice, and why should it be boycotted? They are not printing gay hate material and this obsessive focus on forcing Americans who do not have the same viewpoint to print LGBT imagery or text makes all members of the community seem hostile and militant. Taking a page from the book of Martin Luther King, Jr., if LGBT acceptance is the goal, shouldn't we be showing the opponents how reasonable and logical we are rather than relying on heavy-handed "counter-bigotry"?
Why is this important?
I am starting this petition out of a sense of duty to help shape the strategy of this nation's LGBT movement, focusing it on the issues and actions that are legally and morally justifiable rather than those that verge on propaganda or bullying against those of another viewpoint--actions that make this movement just as bad as those militant opponents. Yes, in-your-face political movements are necessary for times when human rights are at stake, but what makes America great is that our major shifts in cultural awareness have come not from "counter-bigotry" and other excessive actions but from reasonable people making reasonable demands and thereby helping other Americans see the logic of their positions.