Subscribe to Breaking NewsDid you call in gay? Tell us your story!
, editor in chief, 365gay.com 12.10.2008 3:11pm EST
We here at 365gay are curious about whether our readers participated in the boycott today – either the work part or the economic part.
Did you call in gay? Did you refuse to spend money? Tell us what you did – or didn’t do – and why.
No. I started new job a little over a week ago and have a lot to learn.
I could have without consequence but thought better of it.
I only spent a dollar though. I was in desperate need of an afternoon snack of chocolate chip cookies.
Ironically, I work for California which has some of the strongest anti-discrimination laws for the workplace in the country.
Go figure.
If gay people make up 10% of the population, it doesn’t mean that we (the 10%) are evenly distributed amongst industries or even cities for that matter. In areas where there are enough gay folks to walk off and actually make an impact, chances are that city or workplace is already predominantly LGBT friendly. Why hurt our allies????
In my case being the only Out LGBT person working for a defense contractor (republican-dominated industry) that employs more than 1000, calling off “Gay” isn’t going to make much of a splash. I’m only one. However, I can and DO make an impact by being out and being effective in the work I do. Just being myself, being effective, professional, and reliable has earned respect and, I think, changed a lot of my peers perceptions about gay people.
After quite a bit of indecision I decided to call in “gay”. I felt I had to do whatever I could to support our community, especially in these times when rights are given to us and then stripped away-awful. My boss was quite surprised that I decided to do it and the company had a whole speech for him to read to me in case someone did call in gay. He was good enough to let me take the day off. It was a rough decision for me as my work environment has been very supportive of me and my partner for 14 years. But I do what I can to support our community, however small it may be. I am not sure this has made any impact other than getting some smirks and laughs from co-workers. It needs to be better organized or something more that is more “solid” needs to be thought of. Maybe a march on Washington, D.C.?
I thought about it, but didn’t have available vacation time,couldn’t work Saturday to make up for today(and that would’ve been pointless)and didn’t need to burden my co-workers with my caseload. they all know I’m gay, and half expected me to call in,and kidded me when I showed up. I did wear a white ribbon, and tried to educate some of our patients, but they were apparently pretty savvy already. I was going to stop at McDonalds on my way to my 2nd job, but that location was closed for refurbishment, so I didn’t spend any money today.
As a senior management person with more than enuf fellow employees that count on my being their as much as I do them, I went to work. Though I called my CEO (small company of about 90 people) and told him I was calling in GAY, from my desk! he chuckled and said get out of there and go home, which I promptly did not do as I had plenty of work to accomplish. My company is totally supportive with full partner benefits, and similar to other comments I could/wopuld not let my felow workers down nop put more burden on them.
I did go to (volunteer) at Center to feed the homeless, run by a Babtist Minister. and said I was there to Volunteer, but asked if he wanted me there since I was gay! (though he did not know me now I him) he welcomed the help and thanked me for it when I left near 8 PM to go home to have a late bite to eat with my partner. As for spending, the 2 dollars I spent on “Sobe”{ drink or the 5.39 on a gallon of milk, I doubt would have been noticed in the whole scheme of things, and not having either would have made my life a LOT less enjoyable, so NO I did spend 7.39 cents all day. chuckle but I did pay 1 dollar coins to be different annd told the people I bought them from it was money from a gay man! They both laughed and asked if that was something I thought they didn’t know! (they both were good well known to me and I and my partner, to them. I explained about the don’t spend and call in Gay day. They were supportive and offered ,me my purchase free, which I would not accept. This on a great island of 50,000 people in the Caribbean, called St. Croix
As a senior management person with more than enuf fellow employees that count on my being their as much as I do them, I went to work. Though I called my CEO (small company of about 90 people) and told him I was calling in GAY, from my desk! he chuckled and said get out of there and go home, which I promptly did not do as I had plenty of work to accomplish. My company is totally supportive with full partner benefits, and similar to other comments I could/wopuld not let my felow workers down nop put more burden on them.
I did go to (volunteer) at Center to feed the homeless, run by a Babtist Minister. and said I was there to Volunteer, but asked if he wanted me there since I was gay! (though he did not know me now I him) he welcomed the help and thanked me for it when I left near 8 PM to go home to have a late bite to eat with my partner. As for spending, the 2 dollars I spent on “Sobe”{ drink or the 5.39 on a gallon of milk, I doubt would have been noticed in the whole scheme of things, and not having either would have made my life a LOT less enjoyable, so NO I did spend 7.39 cents all day. But I did pay with 1 dollar coins to be different and told the Shops owner that it was from a gay man! They both laughed and asked if that was something I thought they didn’t know! (they both were well known to me, and I and my partner, to them. I explained about the don’t spend and call in Gay day. They were supportive and offered ,me my purchase free,(Yes both shops did) which I would not accept. This on a great island of 50,000 people in the Caribbean, called St. Croix
I work for a very progressive university and had been talking about calling in gay for most of the week. So it was no surprise for them when I took the vacation day. I did do some volunteer work for a homeless outreach organization based in a church, but I found out it has a gay youth outreach program I hadn’t known about. So it was a win-win situation, I did however forget to bring lunch so I flubbed there and spent 8 bucks. oops.
M day was spent at work but I spoke about the issue with my boss directly about this issue and did not buy anything during the day. My partner forgot and bought some Xmas items. LOL! The issue with this protest is that it comes at a time in the nation where the impact could have redirected on the employee and not the company. What should have been done and maybe done in the future is a lunchtime strike where we all make ourselves visiable in a downtown area or something and show up like a flash mob. This would draw attention at work and allow gay allies to join us. Press coverage also would be easier to make.
me and my girlfriend called in gay to school and we got a months detention for it but it was so worth it . were gonna protest again by not going to detention!!!!!!
I took a vacation day, stayed in, chatted on the phone with my ggf’s
it was a good excercise to not spend money. I think we should establish a Gay Holiday every year, self financed of course. At no one else’s expense. Dec 10th is as good a day as any.
The way this economy is now why would anyone with common sense risk calling in for something like this? Will the LGBT Family support you when you lose your job..? I do not think so. Gay Marriage and Equal Rights are very important to me but when it comes to my job it is not that important..I’ll leave the “games” for when I clock out. lol..
I did not call in gay from work, but it wouldn’t really matter if I did or didn’t. The company I work for support me in any way possible and they love my uniqueness! I think that the whole “call in gay day” should be re-thought b/c it is a big decision to make if/when you are in a management decision and it could result in you losing your job. So yes I do support gay rights…I do not support stupidity and it would have been stupid. None of you guys would support my bills if I had lost my job right?! What other support methods can we come up with like after 5pm or on the weekends?
I did not “call in gay”, nor would I support that. I think it is time for this community to change its position from “gay rights” to the issue that the constitution protects ALL AMERICANS to have equal rights. This issue will get more support as a civil rights issue rather than a “gay rights” issue.
We project ourselves as being very self focused when fighting for “gay rights”. It is perceived that we want something special. We need to bring this issue back to the constitution, and the fact that in this country one person does not or should not get to vote on the rights of another person. We need to make the point about how dangerous this precedent is, once this country agrees that one group can vote on the rights of another we have opened a very dangerous door.
I think when the perception is we are less self focused, and more about defending the rights of Americans, the more we will see support for our constitutional rights. When we stop talking about “gay marriage”, and “gay rights” but start talking about human rights and the “right for all Americans to pursue happiness”, as guaranteed in the US Constitution, the greater the chance is American will get on board. Because it will be the rights of ALL Americans we will be defending.
I called in gay, I thought it was a nice idea even if I didn’t believe that many would do it in this economy. I took it as an opportunity to meet some friends out on a Tuesday night, hang out at the Dallas Eagle a bit. No one showed so it was just me watching the patrons play Wii bowling. Then, on my “day off” I was diagnosed with pneumonia! My day without a gay has turned into a week without a gay… lol
Equal Roots organized a canvassing event in observance of a Day Without Gays where about 6 of us hard core activists went out into communities where the voters voted in favor of Prop 8. We were collecting signatures for a petition that Courage Campaign is speadheading in the hopes of reaching 1,000,000 signatures in an effort to repeal Prop 8.
So, Mike Ai (Equal Roots) and I went to the Glendale Galleria yesterday and for the most part it was a very exciting and fun event. Most people were very supportive. The adrenaline was rushing and my heart was beating because we were trying to do it on a downlow. Our first stop was Americana where we ran into an unpleasant security guard who kicked us out so we head across the street to the Galleria. Once there we slipped in amongst the shoppers and did our thing.
I try not to assume anything and approached everyone to tell them we’re from the Courage Campaign and we’re trying to collect enough signatures to repeal Prop 8. Most passersbys would stop dead in their tracks once they hear “repeal Prop 8″ and would utter “Oh, to repeal it? Of course. It should never have been passed in the first place. Here I’ll sign it!” I have to say it was about 60/40 percentage wise. 60% we approached were friendly and signed the petition. One Hispanic lady was so supportive she asked me if she could sign on behalf of all her family. I said “Yes” (hey, I’m an any means necessary kinda guy) and she proceeded to sign four of her family members onto our petition.
I ran into several of our oppositions and engaged in a light discussion (if you can call it that). An older White man, who was with his wife, barked “Why don’t you get over it?” when he overhead my conversation with a supportive voter about two feet away. My heart just went thump and before I knew it “You get over it? We’ll never get over it. We’re gonna win this thing!” came out of my mouth. I shot him an evil eye. Well, to the best of my ability. Mike said, “Come on Nakhone. Don’t engage” and he pulled me away.
Then I ran into a lovely White lady (Something’s wrong with yall White people I think) who told me she doesn’t go to church. She proceeded to quote the Bible and told me that marriage is between a man and a woman. “It’s been like that for 5,000 years,” she said. “Actually, the Bible also says that Polygamy was an okay thing back then. And, FYI…marriage in the old days was a legal contract between the two families designating you, the wife, as a property.” She just blinked when I said that. “Well, the Polygamy thing was in the old testament but the new Testa…” and I cut her off. “Oh, so you’re saying that everything in the Bible is supposedly God inspired and then God changed his mind?” She stood there dumbfounded and I said “Thank you. Happy Holidays!” and walked away.
Soon after we got caught, after being there for about 2 hours, and had to leave. We rounded our day off with a candlelight vigil at the corner of San Vicente and Santa Monica Boulevard. We even made the news! We chanted, we lit candles and we went around the circle reading names of victims who’ve fallen due to hate crimes and the UN’s non-binding resolution in support of Gay Rights. We even marched down to the Coronet Theatre because we knew Margaret Cho was doing a fundraiser there. We all ended up being invited to go inside and see the Xmas show. All in all it was great day!
Gays United Network, along with Equality Network and Equal Roots are talking about organizing a Statewide day of canvassing to collect signatures for the Courage Campaign. It went so well that we want to do this again. Stay tuned for more details.