Boycotting the boycott
Remember the cries for a boycott of Utah for its involvement in passing Propostion 8?
For the sake of brevity, I won't go into minor details, such as: Proposition 8 was on the ballot in California. Or, it was a lot of LDS church members in California who were among its supporters — not every resident of Utah.
Anyway, the details are unimportant now because the great Utah boycott hasn't happened. Leigh von der Esch, Utah's tourism chief, had a bit of a scare, of course, when she was getting 40 calls a day threatening a boycott:
I have not heard of any major cancellations.Nathan Rafferty, president of Ski Utah, is also sighing a big "whew." He told the Trib's Mike Gorrell:
Any time people say they want to change their plans and ski somewhere else, that's a concern. But luckily, it's been unfounded.What happened? Apparently, gays and lesbians are fair-minded folk. Jim Key, of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center, offers an explaination:
It's likely that gays and lesbians will think twice about going to Utah. The state is closely associated with the [LDS] church and the church said, 'You're not welcome.' That likely will have some outcome. But it would be wrong to punish an entire state for the actions of the church.Sunday about a hundred gay rights supporters gathered at the Tower Theater in Salt Lake City to plan their next steps. The obvious list-topper, of course, is the Common Ground initiative, a six-pack of bills in January's legislative session that would expand gay legal protections.
3 Comments:
Maybe the gays are fair-minded
Highly unlikely. I haven't seen any fair-mindedness yet from this group. What I have seen, however, is threats, intimidation, vandalism and violence from the gay rights advocates in an attempt to undermine the democratic process of this nation.
The boycott failed for lack of support, period. The fact that homosexuals comprise a very small minority of the population also factored in.
Ah yes, we saw how well the "Day without a gay" worked. Not surprisingly there wasn't an impact in Utah at all, but even the LAtimes and SFgate reported that the day was a terrible failure in California.
The very people the LGBT community NEEDS they are driving away. They've burned some important bridges these past few weeks that will take decades to repair.
I'm not in favor of a boycott against Utah, but it's important to keep in mind how these things work. They largely affect event-driven tourism (e.g. large conferences and conventions). I sit on the board of two large-ish (about 2k attendees per year/conference) groups, and we know where the meetings will be about two years out.
I can guarantee you, there will be no meetings in Utah, just as there were no meetings in Colorado back in the 90s. People just don't want the hassle.
And hassle UT has, in spades. Just look at the comments in here- straight out of central casting, a collision between Donnie and Marie and Hee Haw.
The boycott may not have a big impact, but I think it's because large national and international meetings would never have considered this place to begin with.
This boycott - whether big or small - will do a lot of brand damage to Utah. And you can thank that cult with headquarters on the hill in SL - as well as the nutjob supporters for that.
It's hard to live here sometimes.
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