How Should One Protest Prop 8?
This recent SacBee article covers a specific example of the Prop. 8 backlash (e.g., boycotts, angry emails and letters, picketing, harassment) that has been going on, more or less, since November all over California.
The article covers the treatment Leatherby's Family Creamery, in Sacramento, has been receiving after their $20,000 donation to Yes on 8 was made public. The article hits especially home for me because the Leatherby's employed me for the better half of my high school years so I could save enough money to go to college.
This situation highlights an issue I've been trying to figure out since the shocking results came out that Prop. 8 had passed: How should one go about protesting Prop. 8? Is boycotting an establishment because its owners supported Prop. 8 really an effective way of pushing the gay marriage agenda?
On the one hand, I certainly don't want my money being used to support another anti-gay marriage campaign. But on the other hand, it seems wrong to punish someone for expressing their beliefs. Further, this tactic seems counterproductive if the goal is to gain support for the gay marriage cause. Won't boycotting and protesting only lead to further polarization of the two sides making it harder to convince people that gay marriage really isn't a scary thing?
Basically what I'm asking is, is it wrong for me to keep going to Leatherby's when I'm back in Sacramento? Because they make some pretty damn good ice cream.
The article covers the treatment Leatherby's Family Creamery, in Sacramento, has been receiving after their $20,000 donation to Yes on 8 was made public. The article hits especially home for me because the Leatherby's employed me for the better half of my high school years so I could save enough money to go to college.
This situation highlights an issue I've been trying to figure out since the shocking results came out that Prop. 8 had passed: How should one go about protesting Prop. 8? Is boycotting an establishment because its owners supported Prop. 8 really an effective way of pushing the gay marriage agenda?
On the one hand, I certainly don't want my money being used to support another anti-gay marriage campaign. But on the other hand, it seems wrong to punish someone for expressing their beliefs. Further, this tactic seems counterproductive if the goal is to gain support for the gay marriage cause. Won't boycotting and protesting only lead to further polarization of the two sides making it harder to convince people that gay marriage really isn't a scary thing?
Basically what I'm asking is, is it wrong for me to keep going to Leatherby's when I'm back in Sacramento? Because they make some pretty damn good ice cream.
Labels: Prop. 8
posted by caley at 10:53 PM
15 Comments:
No, it's not wrong. Only a small percentage of your ice cream money will actually bleed through to the yes on 8 folks. You can easily offset that small percentage with a $10 contribution to the other side. Eat with impunity!
Protesting Prop 8 donors isn't about pushing the "gay agenda." It's about refusing to facilitate discrimination and bigotry. It's an important, nonviolent, civil way to ensure you're not endorsing something you think is wrong. And it's something even squares should be okay with - especially if they're mellow with poor little mom and pop giving 20 grand to the devil.
These boycotts and similar actions against Prop 8 supporters demonstrate the inherently anti-democratic nature of the campaign finance reporting laws. Requiring public disclosure of donors effectively nullifies the secret ballot - a cornerstone of democracy. Eat your ice cream and work to repeal the laws requiring disclosure of campaign donations.
Secret ballots are different from secret campaign funding. It's pretty obvious that while the former is uncontroversial and generally considered beneficial, the latter is not. Knowing the special interests that shape the results of our elections is of the utmost important for avoiding corruption.
Anyone else see the connection with boycotts of the civil rights movements of the past? Were they wrong? Would a donation to an anti-miscegenation ballot initiative make you feel any different?
I don't mean to challenge your ideological purity, but if you feel strongly that Prop 8 was wrong, and that supporting Prop 8 was wrong, then it shouldn't be a hard question, right? Does it feel like you're making politics too personal?
I guess my hesitance to feel that boycotting the businesses of Yes on 8 contributors and the businesses boycotted during the Civil Rights movement is the relation between the discrimination and the businesses.
In the Civil Rights movement, the buses were boycotted because the buses themselves were the instrument of discrimination. Continuing to patronize the bus system directly continued the instrument of discrimination. By boycotting, activists weren't just punishing those who disagreed with them, they were directing their efforts towards the instrument of discrimination.
Here the situation is different. It's not the Leatherbys' restaurant that is refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples. It's the California legal system. If we want to protest, we should be using the political process, just as the Yes on 8 campaigners have done.
I don't know, maybe I'm just splitting hairs here, but it seems to me there is a difference between boycotting a privately owned restaurant that refuses to seat minority patrons and a privately owned restaurant that donated to a campaign.
I guess my real concern here is that I don't see these boycotting tactics as an effective way to bring about a repeal of Prop. 8. Given that the Cal Supreme Court is probably not likely to overturn Prop. 8, that means we're going to need an effective and organized plan starting now. In my opinion, that plan has got to be focused on educating those who were raised (incorrectly in my opinion) to think homosexuality is immoral. I don't think aggressive tactics like boycotting are really a way to achieve such an end. I think such tactics will only entrench each side into thinking what they already think. But maybe I'm just naive to think the Yes-on-8ers can be persuaded from their beliefs.
Spending a few bucks on ice cream isn't going to have much of an impact. But because you already know the store and are a customer, you have an opportunity to make an even more profound impact: next time you go in, let them know that you wish they wouldn't try to weaken the families of their customers.
Tell them, "I buy ice cream here, and I want to get married, and it really makes me sad that I can't. Will you promise not to donate against my rights in the future?"
Forget Leatherby's. Gunther's and Vic's have much better ice cream.
I don't see anything wrong with an economic boycott of a business. Why would I want to give my hard-earned money to a business that thinks it's OK for people to have unequal rights?
It troubles me too for the reasons Caley says.
I am very anti-prop 8 and would prefer to patronize anti-8 places. I do think there is an element of coercion and unfair punishment for thoughts and beliefs through boycotts.
I would draw a line, boycott far rights organizations, and perhaps if you feel it approrpiate some of the heavy donors. But smaller places, people who maybe donated a few dollars and didn't really consider what they were doing...
Besides, I would rather focus my time and money to education.
Maybe engage some of the people at this ice cream parlor and your everyday life about the issue. Ask them why they are more concerned with how people love than hate?
I don't understand the premise of this post, or why we're even having this discussion.
If you believe strongly enough in this that you don't want to patronize businesses whose owners have contributed, then don't. You're no different than the grocery shopper who chooses to buy his or her produce from local, sustainable, "organic" farms. Or the person who goes to the locally-owned hardware store instead of Home Depot. Or whatever. It's called voting with your pocketbook (or something like that), and people do it relatively uncontroversially every day.
If, on the other hand, you're okay with patronizing a business knowing that you're helping (however minimally) line the pocketbook of someone - i.e., the owner of that business - that will eventually donate to groups like "Yes on 8," then by all means, go ahead. Just don't judge those who aren't okay with it.
This Matt person is the only one who gets it.
If I don't want to give money to businesses that support discrimination, then I won't.
I'll let others know which business supported Prop 8 so if they don't want to give them money, they can make that choice too.
And I think it is very naive to think education will solve much of anything. Those who supported Prop 8 see the issue not just about marriage, but about "validating" a lifestyle that they think is immoral.
And they don't just think it is immoral, typically their religious beliefs tell them that it is immoral. Asking them to change their mind about homosexuality is to ask them to rethink their religious beliefs entirely.
I think it might be helpful to actually get to know some Prop 8 supporters. The issue for many of them wasn't that it's immoral, it was that it's not marriage. There's a reason support for civil unions is so much higher than support for gay marriage, even though civil unions also legitimize this "immoral" behavior.
This effort to construct this narrative of Prop 8 supporters as gay-haters is why they aren't going to come around. When opponents try to create a false explanation for supporters' views, they're going to conclude that the opponents' ideas have something wrong with them since the opponents seem obsessed with changing the topic.
If the argument is "It really is marriage!" that's something you can convince an ignorant person of. If it's "You believe X!" you're the ignorant one, and the person you're yelling at knows the truth, so no one is moved.
You must have missed all the Prop 8 discussion about how allowing the gays to get married rather than relegating them to a separate institution will normalize homosexuality and how our kids will be taught that it is okay to for two men to marry and that it is okay to be gay.
Do you really think that all that is about marriage? It's not. It's about whether or not they find homosexuality in general to be acceptable.
You are mistaken in your assertion that it was purely about marriage.
Sure, in theory, they may support civil unions and all the legal rights of marriage, in reality, they don't. Look at Utah. Most people in Utah support allowing gays and lesbians to have the same rights as married couples, just not the title, but when it comes down to it, the legislature refuses to pass any legislation that would grant such rights.
You find legislators saying that gays are "threat to America" and you really believe that the whole conversation is purely about marriage?
And not everyone at Boalt is from liberal California. Some of us know these Prop 8 supporter types because that's our mother and father and pretty much everyone we've ever known.
Yes, I did miss that Prop 8 discussion. Did you actually see it widespread among Prop 8 supporters (the average, everyday ones, not the ones who make a living making controversial statements), or merely hear it described? The Prop 8 supporters I know said very little about morality, normalization, etc. when I argued with them on this.
I'm not saying the people you describe don't exist, but to suggest that all Prop 8 supporters feel that way is incorrect, and creates the ill will that makes it impossible to change the 5% or so of their minds we would need to turn Prop 8 around.
I like Vic's because their hot dog sandwiches are good. Leatherby's is the best though. Gunther's is hella ghetto. Forget that. You worked at Leatherby's too? I feel bad for you...
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