Friday, September 03, 2010

Who cares

Gun enthusiasts, Tea Party supporters, conservatives and to some extent libertarians are often stereotyped as anti-gay bigots.

When I blogged about Southern Style Granite, I realized that the only place I had seen references were from other gun bloggers. I assumed it was sample bias, since I have a high proportion of gun bloggers in my RSS feed. After posting a comment on Daisy's Dead Air, I decided to look into who was spreading the word about Southern Style Granite. Ambulance Driver and Dan Savage both mentioned this incident on August 30, so there has been plenty of time for both sets of readers. I logged out of Google to avoid getting customized results, and checked the first 50 results.  Well over half of these results mentioned thir bias, and 13 mentions were distinct blogs.  (some blogs showed up several times in the Google results, I only counted each one time. 

Of the 13, 6 were people I recognized as gun bloggers, 4 gay or gay oriented (and one gay gun blogger counted in both), and 4 that were not easily classified in either of the first 2 groups.

So bigoted, right wing gun nuts are doing more than gay-oriented bloggers to spread the word about a particular incident of anti-gay bigotry.   (EMS bloggers may be tied with gun bloggers, I didn't count them separately)  

Too many people confuse a lack of support for legislation for a lack of support for the cause itself.  Jennifer said it well--
I don’t believe in forcing tolerance by force of law, but I do fully support any individuals desire to move their dollars elsewhere. It’s the beauty of the free market. I choose not to do business with bigots like Southern Style Granite.
Southern Style Granite should be allowed to choose who to serve--but they should not be shielded from the results.  I hope this spreads, and there is a significant drop in Southern Style's business as a direct result--and I hope they realize the cause.   

3 comments:

  1. Are you kidding? This is really your evidence that gunloons are really full of love and diversity?

    Why not try another experiment? Take a look at politicians with an "A" rating by the NRA--then look at these same politician's records on gay rights.

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  2. But it isn't "forcing tolerance by force of law". All we're saying is that we want equality.

    And really, if you think "bigoted, right wing gun nuts are doing more than gay-oriented bloggers to spread the word about a particular incident of anti-gay bigotry...", I think you need to scan more blogs out here.

    Mo Rage

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  3. I have 2 a-rated politicians that represent me. The A-rated Democratic governor is good on gay rights, the A rated republican US representative is not.

    But it isn't "forcing tolerance by force of law". All we're saying is that we want equality

    I also want equality. What do you propose then, that is not through force of law? I think adverse publicity and a boycott is perfectly reasonable, and what I and others are trying to accomplish.

    I do not think that gun bloggers are doing more in general for gay rights than gay rights bloggers. In this particular case though the gun bloggers are more effective, based on a stated goal of getting this bigoted incident pushed to the top of the Google results when searching for Southern Style Granite.
    My main point was that a majority of gun rights activists do not fit the stereotype of a redneck bigot.

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