A Mississippi News anchor recently claimed that the GLBTI ABC community have been "in the news too much lately" (Quoting from the Advocate's original article)
Now, admittedly, his statement was badly worded and the suggestion we should all just go on 'gaycation' comes across as highly offensive. And the community rightly pointed out that at the moment we're still not equal despite rapid changes so far.
Despite this, this hasn't brought out the best of our community. While most of the comments have pointed out the double standards in his commentary and have remained respectful both to him and to his right to freedom of speech, other comments on the Advocate's Facebook feed on this story have included such witty remarks as "idiot", "penis head", "go fuck himself", just to grab a few.
And very few, if any of these comments, have actually addressed the issue itself. Now, I admit, I come from a slightly outside point of view - I live in New Zealand and have, for all intents and purposes, full marriage equality under the Law. As mentioned in previous posts however, this doesn't necessarily mean that homophobia has been wiped out, the opposite is true. But the question remains - could too much coverage be a bad thing?
Honestly, I don't know. There is an argument that disproportiante coverage of the issue might do more damage than good to the case - perhaps this is what Mr. Elliot was alluding to (admittedly in a rather clumsy and badly worded way) - that it might turn those who might actually support our cause either off, or it will create a fatigue of the story which may do more harm than good.
But this question is not being asked, it's not being discussed - what's the best strategy for gaining equality for our brothers in the US of A? Can an argument be made that perhaps toning it down for a while to come back stronger and achieve better results be made?
Be keen to hear your thoughts...
