Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Proposition 8 fall out - Stop whining and stand behind your donations

There is a lot of fallout over the Proposition 8 vote. Those who did donate to pass that awful referendum are now facing the consequences of their actions. This is one that you no doubt already heard about:

California Musical Theatre's artistic director, Scott Eckern, resigned from his post today amid controversy over a donation he made to the Proposition 8 campaign to ban gay marriage.

Eckern gave $1,000 in support of Proposition 8, a donation that sparked criticism from theater workers and the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community.

"We have released a statement that Scott resigned," said Chris McSwain, community affairs director for the theater company. He declined to comment further. . .

Eckern also released a statement today saying that he quit "after prayerful consideration to protect the organization and to help the healing in the local theatre-going and creative community."

To put it nicely, Eckern pissed off a lot of people, including Jeff Whitty (Avenue Q) and Marc Shaiman (Hairspray).

No doubt we will be inudated by the religious right who will wax about evil intolerant gay folks but please spare us your usual twists in logic.

You are the same folks who boycotted McDonalds and Ford Auto because of their supposed support of the "gay agenda."

I can only hope that in this juncture, the religious right won't be their usual hypocritical selves.

Eckern obviously thought that he could have it both ways; he can donate to a referendum that denies lgbts basic human rights but can also make money from the efforts of lgbts.

It's a classic case of what we learn as children about making choices. It was Eckern's right to make his donation but with his donations, like all things, there are consequences.

And in a general sense, I have no pity for anyone who suffers repercussions (albeit rational and logical repercussions) over their donations to Proposition 8.

If you as a business owner donated to Proposition 8, then you don't have the right to force angry lgbts to continue to cater to your business.

And you don't have a right to tell them that they cannot launch a boycott.

You only have the right to man up and stand by your donation.

If you can't then maybe you shouldn't have made said donation in the first place.

1 comment:

Buffy said...

Funny how when they eradicate our rights they're just "voting their values". When we protest we're being "anti-religious bigots".

When they boycott any number of businesses because they Support The Gay Agenda that's OK because they're just defending their beliefs and supporting wholesome businesses instead. When we boycott businesses because they donated to the Prop 8 campaign or otherwise harm us we're anti-American, anti-religious bigots who seek to harm religious businesspeople.

Gah!