OPEN STATEMENT OF A CONCERNED CALIFORNIAN

I believe in the first Amendment and believe that those with a voice should be heard, no matter their view. Whether we agree or disagree; we all have that basic right to open our mouths and speak what we will.  The drawback is that not all people are civil and some will unfortunately turn to violence or disrespect those who disagree. As such, I have opened up to allow others to voice their opinions here and first is my friend Dan Deno. I give you…

OPEN STATEMENT OF A CONCERNED CALIFORNIAN
Dan Deno

Today I was reading the newspaper and one of the stories bugged the hell out of me. The story was about how gay activist were protesting a conference at the Manchester Grand Hyatt. Gay rights groups are boycotting the hotel because the owner chose to use his personal funds to support prop 8 the states ban on same sex marriages. The gay rights groups have said that they will end the boycott when the owner Doug Manchester caves into their demands one of which is apologizing to the gay community for supporting prop 8. My first point is, were you denied your right to vote on this? The facts are we had a chance to vote on this issue twice, this measure had an equal chance of failing as it did passing but you don’t hear this from the gay rights side. To the activists it has become a great conspiracy put against them by conservatives and religious organizations that don’t approve of the homosexual lifestyle. The facts are the measure passed threw a fair vote put to the public so all Californians were able to pass the measure or have the measure fail.

The second thing that bothers me is the actions of gay rights activists and their supporters after the measure passed. I understand that people will feel anger after something that’s personal as marriage but there is a line of civility and that line was crossed. If you don’t remember the names of businesses, organizations, and individuals who supported the ban were posted on the internet and were subsequently attacked threw cyber harassment and personal threats by those against the ban. The thing that bothered me more was the actions taken against churches and businesses that supported the measure. First of all the disruption of religious services and making personal threats against those who attended will not help your cause, in fact it will make people resent you more. Secondly when it comes to businesses boycotting and protesting will only hurt those who work their not the owners. Now to the point Mr.. Manchester has the personal right to believe what he wants and has the right to spend his money on what causes he likes if you disagree with him then disagree with him but harassment is not the answer.

Gay rights activist and their supporters what to roast him because he doesn’t believe what they believe and to this I say shut up and change the law. When the first law was stuck down by the Californian Supreme Court did you see massive protests directed at gay owned business? Did those who were against the ban receive personal threats from those supported the ban? Did you see massive protests outside gay rights organizations from people who supported the ban disrupting their daily activities? The answer is no what you saw was that those who supported the ban went threw the proposition process and put it on the ballet so we all had a say on the issue as Californians.

If you are gay, transgender, or by and you want to boycott the Hyatt then go ahead don’t spend your money there but the answers don’t come from protest, personal attacks, and harassment of those who think opposite to what you believe. The answer is in taking the steps to change the law, go threw the ballet process so that we as a state we can vote on it if it passes or fails that’s end of it. Now I know that people will attack this and say that this article is hateful and homophobic and to those I say believe what you want I don’t care its these people who will miss the underling point of this article. To those who do get the message if you want to change the law to better suit you position than do it don’t complain about being denied your civil rights because you were given a chance to vote on this issue and it didn’t work out the you wanted it.