The members of the Hillsborough County Commission who voted this past week to kick Gay Pride Week out of the public libraries do not consider themselves to be the bad guys. So screaming at them will not change their ways.
What will change their ways is for folks to be disappointed with them, and for their friends and neighbors to tell them so. That is how the world changes.
It's how we white people changed.
I was born at the end of the 1950s. In the place and the time that I grew up, it was socially acceptable for white people to be openly racist. Lots of people said N-this and N-that to each other.
Even today, open racism still exists. But in our culture it generally is not acceptable. And although part of that change came from protests and marches and laws, an essential part of the change was that racism had to become shameful among white people, and in the way they dealt with each other.
The same has to happen among straight people regarding our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters - and they are our brothers and sisters, and our children, and even our parents.
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