LGBT Support.

For those of you who do not know, I am friends with a big chunk of the Lancaster gay community. They're all great, and a lot of fun! One of my closest friends is sort of the social hub for hundreds of locals who are interested in clubs, drinking, parties, and classy affairs. If you know me, you are probably aware of this. But you might also wonder how the hell a straight, low class, fashion-less guy like me fits into this scene. From what I can tell, not very well!... But they seem to accept me and I just do my best to fit in and have fun.

Anyway, within the last few years the subject of LGBT rights has seemed to evolve quite a bit. Especially in the news. Support for the LGBT community has grown slightly and the subject doesn't seem to be so taboo in the media. This is great! I feel that we are very close to constitutional amendments, or at least federal laws which protect the rights of everyone, regardless of sexual orientation. But just because support for LGBT almost seems to be on the winning side of things, doesn't mean we're entitled to do or say whatever we want.

As humans we like to group together in the face of conflict. Unfortunately, we much prefer to group together on the side that's winning. This is especially true for us Americans. The cliche of a group of kids forming a circle around a fight and cheering the bad guy comes to mind. Yeah, that's often dramatized on TV and in movies. But the only thing that I see in those fictional fights as being completely inaccurate is the perfect circle that kids form and the fact that the person who's winning is always the bad guy. People still like to stand back and watch a fight, and it's easiest to cheer on the winner. So in the fight for LGBT rights, it's almost like LGBT is winning and beating the crap out of the homophobes while the general public stands around and cheers them on. Now that homosexuality is such a common and open subject and the LGBT community is more free to express themselves in public, the homophobes feel more threatened than ever.

If you learned anything from sesame street, you probably learned that you can rationalize with anyone in a disagreement and come to a compromise. Well, that's not really true. Unless we can sit every single person in the world down to have a completely open debate with each other, a simple compromise that's agreed upon by both parties is just not gonna happen. 

Don't get me wrong, the issue is definitely not black and white. There needs to be some compromises. But, so far the only compromise that's taken place has been to pretty much leave things the way they are unless there's a chance of a lawsuit. This has a lot to do with how complicated the issue is. But until we come up with something that everyone agrees on, it's just going to be a fight over beliefs. 

Beliefs are strong and sometimes impossible to change. Homophobia is something that was taught to millions of people from birth. That's why this fight is probably not going to be over in our lifetimes, let alone in a few years. When the loosing side has strong beliefs and conviction things might start to get ridiculous. So in order to get by and not waste our lives fighting relentlessly while gaining little or no ground, we need to work at this slowly with strong, well timed advances.

And that's how I feel about that... ONTO the current issue...

Recently there have been blow-ups about what companies and organizations are on which side. Well guess what, until the fight is over, which it might never be, there are always going to be people in positions of power who will express their open support for one side or the other!

Oreo came out with an image of a rainbow filled Oreo with the words "JUNE 25 | PRIDE". This was part of their centennial celebration, but is an obvious nod to LGBT support by Oreo and, by association it's owner Kraft. Immediately the homophobes were in uproar and thousands began to organize a boycott of the brand. Not only is this a weak push by the homophobes, but it was a completely shallow idea. This is very much an intellectual battle, these kinds of scare tactics are about as effective as a declawed cat taking a swipe at your hand.

BUT on the other side of the fight, we have Chick Fil A (A devout christian corporation) providing food for the Pennsylvania Family Institute (a severely anti-gay company). And there's also Boy Scouts of America having a unanimous vote to uphold their policies of no gays ever. And as with the Oreo issue, we now have an uproar, but this time it's obviously on the pro-LGBT side.

Attention all LGBT supporters:
Have we learned nothing? Little fights and protests against private companies and organizations are pretty much useless. Even if you were to shut a company like Chick Fil A down for good, support for the other side would only grow. Changing their mind is a pretty good goal, but it's probably not going to happen. What we need to do is let the homophobes be homophobes. If they don't get any attention then maybe they'll wonder what they're doing wrong, or even start to let their guard down. A fast food chain and a weird all-boy "ethics" training club are harmless. We need to fight organizations like Pennsylvania Family Institute. We need to take down organizations of people who are doing nothing but spreading hate and making strong advances in this fight.

Stop trying to organize a boycott of Chick Fil A, and stop sending hate mail to the Boy Scouts. If you want a time wasting pass-time where you worry about something pointless, then watching sports is a hell of a lot more interesting. If you don't like them, then don't support them. But I, for one, love fried chicken and waffle fries. The Boy Scouts was never something that I loved, except for pinewood derbies, so I'm not gonna go out and burn my old uniforms or anything.

Please stop filling up my Facebook newsfeeds with complete lists of all the companies that the other side should boycott in the interest of consistency. We need to pick our battles here.