As a gay atheist, who's business took a hit when I helped foment an anti-war demonstration in the lead up to the Invasion of Iraq, I'm not impressed by your suffering.
That figures. I don't like a bit that you suffered. It was wrong. However, I don't figure that your own suffering (because you are gay or anti war) is the only suffering that matters. I don't want 'special rights." I want to walk into a craft store that was not forced to have an 'everybody is welcome here, gay, transgendered, no matter what their skin color is or gender identification...(unless, of course, you support Trump or are conservative in any other way, in that case don't come in here)" and then have rainbow flags over every aisle whether they are appropriate to the display or not. I understand, when I see those, that this business has been targeted, and that if I go on facebook or instagram or twitter, I will find attacks, threats, boycotts and long winded apologies. not for anything that business actually DID, mind you, but because those signs were not previously there.
Frankly, they shouldn't be there. all this stuff should be presumed, and only gone after when someone violates common courtesy....and I am going to tell you right now that selling a MAGA hat pattern next to a 'F***Trump" hat pattern doesn't count.
YOU chose to 'foment' (and that's a word that absolutely implies violence, btw) an anti war movement.You should expect push back. That's what having a different opinion does. It's a good thing. But when a business that has absolutely no intention of offending anybody, and only wants to sell books or yarn or patterns to anybody who comes in...when that business is told that if they don't have a sign with a list of welcome people (which of course means that there are unwelcome people, like me...I'm not on the list) and rainbow signs all over, even though being gay has NOTHING to do with the business...when that business is told that they will be targeted and destroyed unlesss they comply?
That's wrong. That isn't 'special privilege.' Thats exactly the opposite. That is being the target of bullies.
You, as a gay athiest, are not any better than I, a straight theist, am. Sorry, but you aren't. The opposite holds true, too, of course, but I'm beginning to think that those on your side somehow think that simply because you are NOT straight or theist, that you are superior to the rest of us, and I am getting tired of it.
Look. I don't care who you love. I'll bake your cake. I'll dance at your wedding. Good luck to you all your life. But I have news; you try and MAKE me make your cake because you are gay and have special rights none of my other clients do? You can whistle for it. Your opinions don't mean one whit more than mine do, whether you agree with them or not.
Look around at the signs, how Ravelry, for instance, will destroy you, kick you off, vilify, bully and stalk you, if you have the effrontery to offer a 'MAGA" hat design rather than a "F*** Trump" one, and tell me that again. Show me one site where the opposite is true. Just one. Show me one business that was driven from business, or had to apologize at length, for saying something that supports a conservative viewpoint. Show me one law suit against someone who...for instance...thought that two black students had more right to shoplift wine than two white students do. I can show you what the university, it's faculty and students did to a bakery which DID figure that skin color or not, shoplifting was wrong, and I can show you the lawsuit that resulted from that, but that skin color or gender identification automatically gives one rights that being straight and white don't give you? No. You won't see those.
You need to understand that strong opinions mean strong reactions...and that's a good thing, not a bad one. If you are going to 'foment' something, expect resistance. If you see opinions you don't like, GIVE resistance, but don't figure that YOUR opinions are special because they are yours.
Because they aren't.
It looks more like the conservatives who object to equality, and feel persecuted when they don't get special rights, to me.
Tom
It is precisely the other way around. It is not ME, or other conservatives, who object to having you voice your POV. You go right ahead and offer your "F*** Trump" pattern along with the MAGA hat pattern. You should. It needs to be available and seen. It is you and other liberals who want to make sure that none of the rest of us can say anything with which you disagree. It is you and other liberals who will destroy businesses and lives if they so much as offer a differing opinion along with yours.
