It used to bother me a little. Corporations, that gave little if any visible support to the gay community 11 months out of the year, would, during the month of June, shamelessly use our hard fought battle for equality and acceptance as a marketing tool. Media would be awash in rainbows. But this year is different. Nary a rainbow to be seen. One major retailer has made the decision to move it's Pride section to secondary locations on their sales floors out of concern for the safety of it's employees and protection of their property. They have reacted, understandably so, to boycotts, personal confrontations and anger. Fear has forced the corporate turtles to take safe haven within their shells.
How did it get here? Why is an angry and hate filled minority allowed to have an oversized voice in our country today regarding both public and private policy?
Over the last several years I have sometimes thought about how, almost fortunate, I am to be the age I am. I think about how I am watching the second act and somehow comforted that, after intermission, I will not be around or too senile to notice the third.
Perhaps it will not be as bad as I fear. We saw hate and fear in the 50's turn into the transformative period of the 60's. But this was before social media. Please do not point out the hypocrisy and irony of making this statement on a blog, I am aware of both. When anger, hate and insults can be thrown out from a keyboard protected by the barrier of a glass screen it can sometimes have the effect, not unlike alcohol, of loosening inhibitions.
In the meantime I live my life in my, tolerant, diverse, deep blue city with it's embarrassing wealth of culture hoping that the younger generations will eventually wake up, rise up, educate themselves and demand and begin to take responsibility for their great future that could be.
