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A Different Angle: a random collection of essays and observations, mostly about lesbian/gay/bi issues.
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I'm beginning this month's column with an excerpt from a letter I wrote to a friend before that whole Kellogg business took place. He didn't think it was fair to boycott the whole state of Colorado, including our friends. He thought we should just focus on overturning the measure in court. I disagreed.
If it had been an executive, legislative, or judicial action, it might be unfair to take it out on the people of Colorado. But the measure was passed by popular vote. I don't think there's any question that we want to slap the people who voted for it. But callous as it sounds, I think that many of our "friends" in Colorado need a little kick in the pants as well, because not enough of them bothered to speak up or vote against it. John Denver was on the news the other day, accusing Hollywood of being hypocritical. Funny, but I didn't hear much from him before the vote (or the boycott).
A boycott isn't likely to change many already-made-up minds. Bigots will always be bigots, and I don't think we should waste any time trying to make them our friends. The idea is to get the fence-sitters (and that includes apathetic gay Coloradans) to realise that this is serious damn it, and not something we can just shrug our shoulders over and move along. Getting the measure overturned in the courts would be a hollow victory if Joe and Jane Colorado still thought that denying "special rights" for gay people was a harmless, fair idea.
I wrote that from a safe position. It was before one of our own local homophobes announced that he wanted Michigan to join Colorado... and hold us up as another boycott target. As Holly VanScoy told The Press, we dodged that bullet. But I'm sure that someone else will pick up the gun Kellogg dropped, and fire it again. And it will probably be someone a lot sharper, better financed, and more committed to hurting us than Carl Kellogg.
With that in mind, it might be a good idea for me to start retracting my harsh statements about Colorado and her citizens. After all, they could be used against Michigan and Michiganders, if the next initiative succeeds. But I'm biting the bullet and sticking by them, because they were my last words from an "objective" viewpoint. And we need the reminder that this is serious.
If we fail to defeat such a proposal, it will do more than just maintain the status quo here in Western Michigan. The damage will take three basic forms.
First, it will put people who are currently protected in a very dangerous position. Someone who may have come out under the security of a local gay rights ordinance would be in danger of being fired or evicted. Something that was once recognized by their city as a right (i.e. being who they are) would no longer be safe.
On a larger scale, this measure threatens our chances at gaining enforceable civil rights on the state level. The Dressel Bill, which would add "sexual orientation" to the Michigan civil rights laws, is being reintroduced. Kellogg's effort and the ones to follow are designed to kill that bill before it can become law.
But the biggest danger is on the national level. Last November, the lesbian/gay/bisexual community lost in Colorado and won in Oregon. Many people warned that if the measure passed in Colorado, it would inspire similar measures elsewhere... and they were right. If we can stop it here, that may help stop the momentum. But if we fail, they'll just keep going.
The people of Colorado didn't take the threat seriously enough. We won't make the same mistake. If you want to help keep Michigan's good name, and help protect our business and tourism from the outrage of our neighbors, and - more to the point - if you want to protect your own basic rights, then the time to act is now.
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