Day Without a Gay Bust

So it seems that the "Day Without a Gay" protest drew little attention and few participants. Apparently a few people have commented that, given the bad economy, it simply wasn't prudent to strike, that such a an effort would have a backlash on the gay community.

That explanation doesn't seem to work, to me. Maybe I'd be a bit more ruthless in this, but a poor economy would, to me, be the best time, so that the message hits home hardest. But then, I suspect that maybe the reason the protest didn't find wide participation is because, in contrast with similar protests by blacks and Hispanics, homosexuality doesn't manifest visually in terms of unalterable traits. While I'm willing to concede to the theory that "homosexuality is not a choice", nevertheless homosexual actions do involve choice. One can choose to engage in homosexual sex, or one can choose to refrain. One can choose to be "flaming", or one can choose to appear no different than any other random Joe on the streets.

The problem the gay movement is having, I think, is this. The black movement truly and honestly dealt with discrimination that targeted something blacks simply could not change. Moreover, blacks were fighting to be recognized as far more than just a skin color. Those in the gay movement, though, are largely discriminated against for their behavior (and not their sexual preference per se). What this amounts to, then, is that in order to equate their struggles as being discriminated against as something that they are, they have to reduce themselves to nothing but gay, and I don't think most people with homosexual tendencies want to completely subsume themselves under a single label.

To simplify, because the onus is on the behavior, not on an unchangeable trait, people in the gay movement have to make that behavior an unchangeable part of their being, essentially make "gay" the sole qualifying detail about themselves. They have to reduce themselves to a single label in order to make this discrimination fit, and I would conjecture that the human mind find such a reduction of self unappealing.