Marriage is love.

Monday, February 21, 2005

Miami Beach Wants Your Gay Dollars - but Don't Ask for Gay Rights



RAINBOW TOURISMGay tourism has become a big business for S. Florida, with events like the Winter Party Festival attracting tens of thousands of gays and lesbians from all over the world. Entire story is here.

The Miami Herald ran a very interesting article today in their widely-read Business Monday section. Now, there are a couple of interesting things about this:
1. It ran as the COVER STORY in this section - the one section that actually writes for those with an education above the 6th grade.
2. It is on the HOME PAGE of the www.herald.com website.

Folks, this is something that the LGBT community still is not stepping up to do: use our own "almighty" DOLLAR$ to do our work for us. Florida has the some of the MOST PUNITIVE anti-gay laws as far as adoption and other rights - remember our own bankrupt gal Anita Bryant - yet it gets most of its revenues from tourism (we have no state income tax) and the LGBT community helps add to that revenue pool in a big way.

I think, in my most humble opinion - that is is time to stop the angle of "marriage is a right for all" - which is a completely different frame from the "mainstream" - and a long way from winning. It is time to TRULY speak in a language corporate America understands - $$$$$$$$!

Let's start a discourse of how we can concentrate on using our dollars NOT on the ineffectual organizations who spend more time on PR than on really doing anything (HRC....) - or on random ideas of boycotts of a single product...

Julien's List is happy to be the central forum or blackboard for this discourse...we welcome your comments!


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