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I am amazed by a story run by the AP today in which supporters of Proposition 8 are asking for court relief from campaign finance laws. One complaint is that business who employ people who donated to Prop 8 are facing boycotts.
Now I don’t believe that businesses should be held accountable for the political views of mere employees, but I also believe that boycotts are perfectly legal, important tools for the promotion of social causes. In fact, the anti-gay lobby has been, perhaps, the most successful boycotter of all.
They consistently encourage businesses (like McDonalds) to pull funding for equality organizations, encourage television networks to pull shows with gay content and encourage individual organizations to tone down their pro-rights language.
How can they be complaining about boycotts?
This case will not be about the right to a secret ballot. It is about the right to funnel large amounts of money to certain political causes. This, thank goodness, has never been a privilege in the United States.
The truth is that, progressive and conservative donors risk exposure for their affiliations. Legally, the U.S. does not protect them from the fallout of their declaration. Instead, it is up to the people to avoid a similar situation to the kind of witch hunts for communist individuals during the McCarthy era.
So my suggestion to our community is to carefully craft an effective dissent strategy. Leave the individuals who donated to Prop 8 alone. Look to the bigger players, the CEO’s, the corporations, etc. Organize targeted boycotts that get the big players and forget about the employees at Home Depot.
And for God’s sake, stop sending white powder in envelopes. Not only is that illegal, but it is so 2001.
Corporations are not voters, corporations are headed and made up by people who vote.
All who gave substantial financial aid to Prop 8 need to be made accountable for their bigotry, treating them with kid gloves will be taking by our foes as condoning what they have done. And as a green light for them to do it again.
It’s about time we start to show our teeth!
Instead of the effete response we always give those who harm us.
There are no rules when you’re talking about California’s Banana Republic government.
“They,” by which I mean Schwarzenegger, Fienstein, Villaraigosa, Pelosi, Brown, and assorted friends, let the vote go forward because they thought: (A) it would get voted down and (B) the gays wouldn’t care much if it somehow defied expectations and passed. Both assumptions turned out to be false. The Supreme Court also bounced it around because they didn’t want to run for re-election in 2010 with the specter of same-sex marriage around their necks. So much for that idea.
So, now the embarassed government has been put into the ridiculous position of… going to the same court that didn’t act when it should have… to sue their own people. Did I mention they’re paying for this by using the taxes of the same people who voted for Prop. 8?
It is an absurdity. Somewhere, a former South American dictator is laughing at the Golden State right about now. Welcome to the idiocy that is California.
It was Attorney General Jerry Brown who approved the ballot initiative in the first place to get signatures. I’m still not sure how it was okay to submit to voters, but then not okay once the voters approved it. (I personally believe it was NOT okay at all)
I’m also still wondering how it’s legal to collect signatures under the premise of “it’s just reinforcing existing law” and then to have the ballot voted on after that foundation was reversed. You’d think they would’ve had to start all over getting signatures.
People need to live where they stand. They will likely lose these lawsuits. Even progressives should have their donations disclosed. The real issue is that the California Supreme Court dropped the ball on their reponsibility to give the appropriate weight to domestic tranquility…meaning prop 8 should never have been allowed on the ballot by the Court which had the opportunity to prevent it from doing so. This is the real abomination of this entire situation. Transparency is a good thing in the long run for both sides.
Lets just blend blogs:
The AFA, in an Action Alert to its more than two-million members, urges supporters to sign an online pledge to boycott Pepsi products and to call the company to tell it “to stop promoting the homosexual agenda.”
“PepsiCo has refused a request by AFA to remain neutral in the culture war,” the Action Alert said.
“In the last two years, Pepsi has given $500,000 to the Human Rights Campaign and $500,000 to the Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. The $1,000,000 was to be used to help promote homosexuality in the workplace,” the AFA said.
“Pepsi refuses to give money to any pro-family organization that opposes the homosexual agenda. Plus, every homosexual organization we know of is overwhelmingly pro-abortion,” according to the Action Alert.
…and remember everyone buy all the Pepsi you can. That is their latest boycott.
They call themselves “Christians” but have done the most “Un-Christ like” thing. It makes you wonder who is teaching the Bible lessons and what Bible they are teaching from. My true “Christian” friends are appalled at the actions by these people.
Our fight for rights is a civil matter and our Founding Fathers penned the constitution on separation of church and state. It is truly a sad day for the US when we allow the “religious right” to dictate civil matters. We don’t go into their church and tell them what they can and cannot do, but our government is allowing the opposite to happen more and more frequently. I have no intention of getting married in a church, but I would like the same civil rights to marry..
Boycott whatever business you feel you should. Be sure you do not do harm to our community by your actions. To boycott a business because of the acts of one employee is not an appropriate response. Now if the company took the action, by all means boycott it. If you are truly concerned by the actions of an individual, then you should contact them in a professional and courteous manner. You may be the first person they hear from and first impressions are important.
“So my suggestion to our community is to carefully craft an effective dissent strategy.”
What ignorance. What should we do, call for an all gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer and questioning ecumenical council to produce an agenda?!?! We’re NOT a corporation or a church, we cannot carefully craft anything, most less “an effective dissent strategy”. Furthermore, many Americans have been convinced that we have some sort of uniform gay “agenda”, like a gay movement’s catechism or a little book like the sayings of Chairman Mao. The last damn thing we need to do is stifle the anger and energy of a grassroots movement by looking for an “effective dissent strategy”. This is nothing but a recipe for disaster and it’s the textbook definition of insanity, because we’ve been doing this same old sh*t for far too long.
“Leave the individuals who donated to Prop 8 alone.”
Hell NO, we should make their lives a living hell for what they’ve done. In a terrible economy like this, the price to be paid for trampling on someone’s rights should be unemployment, loss of livelihood, homelessness, etc. It’s time that homophobes begin to taste the very same medicine they so easily dish out. If you steal someone’s car, if you break a contract, if you steal from your work you have to be punished. Now, Prop 8 was so hideous, so invasive into the rights of gay couples that there has to be a punishment for this heinous crime. If someone supported it, they should be punished, if this means they lose their job because of a boycott or they lose their minds like that woman from the Mexican Restaurant El Coyote, then so be it. Every criminal has a sob story or someone who believes they’re a good person. The evil criminals behind prop 8, be they small time donors or CEOs should feel the maximum pain and suffering possible. Prop 8 is a crime against humanity on the scale of the Nuremberg Laws(which forbade jewish rights, marriage, etc). The nazis behind the Nuremberg laws were all hung for their roles, and in all honesty, I believe those behind Prop 8 and similar measures in the US deserve nothing less than the same fate.
“Look to the bigger players, the CEO’s, the corporations, etc. Organize targeted boycotts that get the big players and forget about the employees at Home Depot.”
While I will agree that there are bigger fish to fry, in this age of campaign finance laws, it is the small time “employees at Home Depot” which often make the difference. Those employees at home depot, for instance, make money off of gay and lesbian consumers who spend their disposable income there. When a gay couple’s rights are trampled, they often lose that income, which would be spent at Home Depot. It is only fair that if said Home Depot employee use his wages for something as unforgivable as Prop 8, that he should lose his job, his home, live on the street and freeze to death. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
“And for God’s sake, stop sending white powder in envelopes. Not only is that illegal, but it is so 2001.”
Say what you want about the big T word, as a tactic, it works. I am of the mindset that all war is terror, that all murder is murder, whether it is state sanctioned or carried out in a military action. I am general pro-life, being opposed to both the death penalty and abortion. However, the 2nd Amendment was not designed for hunting, it was designed for protecting the rights of the minority against the rights of the majority. Blacks, Native Americans, women, gays and lesbians and other historically or presently threatened groups have the right to use whatever means necessary to protect their rights. This means, that if some redneck homophobic bigot is trying to lynch you, you have the moral right to resist. This also means that if some homophobic religious nut abuses the legal process(such as in Prop 8)and legislatively lynches us then we have no moral or ethical reason NOT to use any means necessary. Given the ineffectiveness of all this singing, it might be the time to start swinging. As far as the white powder is concerned, it is a bit blase’. But if the people behind Prop 8 and other measures fear for their lives, jobs and livelihoods I can’t criticize those who do it. If you asked me,, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was someone within the homophobic groups who wanted some controversy. Given all those evil basturds do, it wouldn’t shock me.
I hope any business owner who donated to the Yes campaign ends up losing everything.
We get criticized for boycotting business but just the other day the American Family Council release their annual boycott list of 195 businesses. I guess when we do it we’re evil but when they do it, they’re doing God’s work.
Of course they’re not scared. These inane “reach out” approaches show there’s no reason to be scared. We’ll just be so much more nice. We have a history of being helpless. Oh, let’s just continue being nice, and beg for rights. It’s been so effective in the past.
ErasetheH8! is doing just that.
It is a little hypocritical to criticize the gays for their boycotts when the Protect Marriage Campaign admitted that it sent blackmail letters to contributors to No on Prop 8 threatening to publish their names on a hit list if they did not donate the same amount of money to the Yes on 8 Campaign. As for the white powder, we don’t know if that was sent by a gay or by a Mormon trying to discredit the gays. I boycott only those businesses in which the owners or managers supported Prop 8. A business cannot be responsible for the actions of its rank and file employees.
People should ask “WHY” the names of donors are disclosed in states like California. The justification for enacting that type of law is all the justification we need to boycott said businesses, especially if they claim to be “Gay Friendly” while secretly supporting the removal of our rights. The idea that we should financially support these people who turn around and give that money to the *actual* hate mongers is rediculous. I have every right to know what my money supports by buying a product or service, and with that right, I can choose to NOT support those businesses financially. Now, if their argument was harassment or threats of physical violence based on their political involvement, then I would support reforming this law. But anyone willing to PAY to take away MY rights won’t see a single dollar of mine, end of story.
We, as a minority, control a large amount of money, so supporters of Prop 8 and the like should think twice before using their money to alienate us. If money truly does equal power – we’re much better off than many of the other minority groups that have fought for their rights, and I think this fact the religious-right scared. And they should be.
All in all good point Emma. I think it’s fair to point out that some of the individual boycotts were both effective and important to bring a real face to the damage that smaller personal contributions are responsible for. We shouldn’t forget that the Scott Eckels of the world should be shamed for stripping us of our civil dignity while smiling alongside us as colleagues. However, it is time to move on to the big guns. Prop 8 is likely the beginning, and we’ll see more attempts to smash the advance of our civil rights in 2010.