Today, while attempting to show my support for equal rights, a friend pointed out I was setting a double standard. So here's the question: Is it wrong to try and coerce people to boycott a business who does not believe in equal rights for all people when our country is founded on the belief that everyone has the right to an opinion, as well as the right to speak it openly, whether or not you may agree with that opinion?
Like most stories, there are two sides to this one too. For the sake of avoiding bias based on the subject, I'm going to keep this general.
Let's take a look at this from the perspective of the business (since this tends to be the less popular one): This is a family-owned business. It was built up from the ground and is now a nationally known and loved corporation. The firm has worked hard to associate their name with down to earth family values. In recent years, this business has decided to make known an unpopular value that involves a desire to remove the rights of a community who, while they currently do not have many rights, has been working to gain them for quite some time. The firm believes the community is a detriment to the down-to-earth way of living they have been supporting since their beginning. The belief in the way communities should live and the way, in the eyes of the firm, that communities have been living since the beginning of this great country. Using the freedoms of speech, beliefs, and religion this country was founded on, the family business takes their opinion public.
Here's the other side: Many people, whether a member of the community in question or not, feel it is the community's right (based on the freedoms of belief and religion this country was founded on) to live in their own manner. They believe in their right to live in their own way without being questioned publicly in a manner that is degrading to their way of life. They decide to speak out against the large firm and stand up for their own rights and freedoms by starting a boycott of products sold by the family business mentioned above. In this manner, they hope to begin to diminish the beliefs that their way of life is in some way wrong or inappropriate and start to build a country where equality is not just a word people use but a truth.
So is the firm wrong to protest the community's way of life? And is the community wrong to protest the firm? And are people outside the firm and outside the community right to protest either? Or get involved at all? The answer is not clear. On the one hand, supporting the community could potentially get rid of the conflict all together, convincing the majority that the firm is attempting to destroy a peaceful way of living. On the other hand, the same could be said for the support of the firm.
I'm not trying to give an answer here and I am guessing those of you who are well informed in the politics of this country know what I have been referring to even with my attempt to generalize. So I'll leave you with one final question: By showing support for the community, are you supporting freedom of belief of one community at the cost of the freedoms of belief of another?
Please share your comments. I am interested to know what you think.
