As I wait for Maine’s votes to be counted, I have time to provide an explanation of this website and the person behind the scenes.

I’m a gay male who’s tired of both the religious right and the general gay agenda. Both sides have been fighting the same fight under different guises for over forty years. While gay rights have come a long way since the time of Stonewall, all would acknowledge we have a long way to go.

Case in point is the current fight for gay marriage. I don’t support the the idea that gays have a right to marry. Now, before you click to the next blog let me explain.

Simply put, I don’t believe the word marriage should be in any of our laws. As I’ve said on many a podcast “Marriage is a religious concept and has no place in our laws.” Now imagine if gay activists throughout our country promoted that agenda…there’d be an all out lynching.

I don’t see marriage being repealed from our laws, nor do I see a fight for that ideal forming within my lifetime. Therefore, all I can do is to fight for what will pass, gay marriage.

However, the “in your face” approach that has been utilized over the past forty years is one that can continue to be employed. You see, in any war, tactics must change. Taking a page from recent history shows that the first step the US takes is an air attack. The military goes in and carpet bombs various areas of the target in an attempt to “shock and awe”. I equate this approach to how the gay movement began in the 1960′s, and how it continues today.

After the initial campaign, the military switches to using ground troops employing a much more thorough combat method. Some might say that this strategy employs intellect over brawn.

In my opinion, humble or not, it is time for gay activists to begin an intellectual fight for our rights. Rather than being “in your face” with rampant displays of sexuality during pride events, we need to bring the fight to our every day interactions with family, friends, colleagues, etc. I am not suggesting the standard method of coming out is in order; after all, that would be “in your face”. It’s time to begin bringing pictures of our boyfriends, girlfriends, partners and gay “family” into the office. It’s time to stop making up stories as to why we must leave early, what we are doing during the holidays, our vacation, birthday and weekends. It’s only when we begin to speak the truth in a non-confrontational way that our true desires as a community can begin to be realized in today’s social climate. Just as we’ve come a long way in forty years, our straight counter-parts have too. We must stop fighting how we have all along and realize that more of society is ‘with us’ than ‘against us’. Our “in your face” methods have made many would-be supporters tune out.

But this website is not about the overall change that I believe must happen in order for gays to finally get the rights they deserve. This website is about another tactic that we’ve seen used against us but rarely employed ourselves. Boycott.

boy·cott
(boi'kŏt')
tr.v. boy·cott·ed, boy·cott·ing, boy·cotts
To abstain from or act together in abstaining from using, buying, or dealing with as an expression of protest or disfavor or as a means of coercion. See Synonyms at blackball.
n. The act or an instance of boycotting.

[After Charles C. Boycott (1832-1897), English land agent in Ireland.]
boy’cott’er n.

“boycott.” The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. 03 Nov. 2009. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/boycott>

The voters of Maine made clear today that they do not support equality within their borders. They have voted to prohibit two loving citizens the protections of marriage simply because those citizens poses similar sets of genitalia. Mainers have decided to vote against love, family, humanity and decency by effectively repealing a law enacted by their elected officials just five months ago.

It is now time for us, as gay men, women and transgendered to cast our vote against Main and the ~53% of its electorate that chose to deny homosexual citizens the same protections heterosexuals enjoy simply because because of our chromosomes. We must unite and begin an immediate slowing of tourism to Maine.

Until we speak with our dollars, those unable to get past gender assignment will not even try to understand that our desire for marriage is not about “tab a, slot b”, or any combination thereof. Until we speak the language of capitalism, we will not be taken seriously in our quest for democracy. As long as homosexuals continue to give our taxed dollars to those who voted yes on Question 1, they won’t understand how they are truly affected by the gay community.

In 2006, tourists accounted for ~$429 million in tax revenues with tourism alone accounting for 17% of jobs in the state. Indeed Maine states the quality of life afforded to its citizens is affected directly by tourism. It is ironic that the gay Mainer is not afforded the same quality of life paid for by his gay brothers as they visit Maine on vacation.

It is time for all members of the LGBT community to stop paying for the life enjoyed by those who voted against our community.

The argument will be made that by restricting our spending in Maine, we will affect the gay community negatively. I respond by saying that the emotional affect of today’s vote is much more harmful to gay citizens participating in Maine’s tourism industry than any hit to their wallets will be. Certainly there will be pain, the pain that comes before any advancement is realized. I stop short at suggesting LGBT citizens pack up and move to one of the four New England states that support gay marriage, but it’s not a bad idea.

The LGBT community has tried to be in our enemies’ faces for too long now, with diminishing results. It is time to redefine the war – and our methods – for obtaining the same status afforded to the heterosexual citizenry of the world.

It is with this goal that I launch BoycottMaine.US today. My sincere hope is that it will grow into a place where LGBT individuals can learn more about the fight for equality in Maine and other states, while discussing ways we can spend our gay tourism dollars in states that support our right to equal protection under the law.
- TheGriff

Please comment on this article at http://bit.ly/boycottmaine.

Hosts: Jeff, Griff

Interlude Music: Nakia & His Southern Cousins

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Feedback

• Renee Crocker wrote:
  Sorry for the super long comment guys.  You don’t have to read it on the show or anything, I was just honestly interested.
  Sorry, Jeff, you are my fav drood (/lick)  but I have to agree with your co-hosts.  Being gay is not really a right, it’s just something that you are.  Having a right dictates that you have a choice to do it or not.  It’s not a choice to be black, gay, tall or short.  You don’t really have a right to do any of these things.  That’s just who people are.  I think that’s why maybe Griff was a little upset about the word “right”.  There is no choice in this.
  And on the matter of being in peoples faces, there are some people who are “in peoples faces” with the gay movement.  But not everybody is like that.   Should everybody who is gay state the fact that they are gay all the time and be in their faces all the time?  /ponders  now I can see how bringing their mate to the company picnic or something like that is akin to something like a silent demonstration.  Would you look down upon someone who is gay but is not outspoken about being gay?  Not that they are hiding it, but doesn’t go out of the way to state that they are gay.  Is this anything like if a person was of a mixed race, they would have to state that they are black and let everybody know this?  Or do you see that this is something different?  (That’s a serious question).
  And I wonder how the percentage of straight people that marriage doesn’t matter compares to the percentage of gay people that marriage doesn’t matter.  Do you think it’s comprable?  I have no idea what the percentages might be.  I was just wondering in my head.
  Ok, sorry for me getting so deep.  I honestly don’t get a chance to have a back and forth dialogue with somebody who is gay so I don’t get to ask the questions that I have always wondered.  And on this same note, how do you feel when someone who is straight is generally interested in the way the gay culture feels about certain issues.  Do you feel like you shouldn’t talk on behalf of the gay community?  Do you feel uncomfortable?  Are you excited that somebody wants to know more?  As an African-American, I welcome back and forth dialogue and if somebody wants to know more, I love to try to educate but I do caution them that they are my views and might not necessarily reflect the views of other African-Americans.   Future topic idea maybe?
  Thanks guys so much and /lick Jeff.

• Jeff

News

• Underwear party in Atlanta!
• Gay marriage legal in Maine…but for how long?
• Morehouse Bans women’s garb
  • The story
  • The real story

Topics

• Windows 7

WTP

• Selective journalism – Shame on you SOVO! – Griff

Picks:

• Windows 7 – Griff and Jeff
• Nook
• Hulu for Linux – Griff
• S’Mores Goldfish – Griff
• 619 Bearcast (Orgies and Bear Groups) – Jeff

Feedback

• Renee Crocker (Comment on last show)

Thanks for this podcast! I think Coming Out Day is awesome for so many reasons. Even though I’m a straight female, I have seen the struggles that closeted gays go through. I’m not going to pretend to understand, but it still hurts when I see it.

I want a day where that doesn’t have to be a coming out day and that people can just come out without prejudice or shock and it becomes accepted.

Thanks for the awesome podcast guys. It’s one of my favorites! Keep it up. *drinks because she heard Capital City Mens Chorus*

Game for the chatroom.

News

• Police raid Atlanta strip club
• Arnold Schwarzenegger signs law establishing Harvey Milk Day
• Hannah gets 180 days in beating death of gay man: Victim’s mother ‘not pleased’ with sentence

Topics

• Is being gay a right? The term gay rights.
• Equality = equal crime punishment
• Set on fire > hate.
• Are we pushing too hard?
• Birthdays!

WTP

• Shake Weight for Men – Jeff

• Interracial couple denied marriage licsene – Jeff
• http://bit.ly/WTF088 – Griff – This was deleted by author

Picks:

• Uncharted 2 (PS3) – jj

• Capitalism: A Love Story – Griff
• Film Riot – Jeff