Regardless of the people riding/driving by shouting at the the store, I have to ask, why do you work for a people who hate GLBT/queers if you say you support gay rights? I'm not being closed-minded, I'm being descriptively accurate. Remember Prop 8? Gordon Smith's son who committed suicide? "The New Normal" getting dropped by the Mormon-owned TV network Salt Lake City affiliate because it centered on a gay couple?

Sorry you have to deal with this, Anonymous.

Ryan Thompson's "then find another job" response doesn't sit right with me. It's the same response that people throw around when Wal Mart employees want equal rights and fair wages, and it reeks of privilege (oh no, not that word) and a complete misunderstanding of the issue.

A business should not be defined by who owns it so long as they are not in the business of discrimination, and especially if the owners are so far removed from the facility that they don't even know who is employed there. If anything, employing those whose worldviews they do not agree with may actually encourage progress.

Clearly the author is not offended by the everyday atmosphere of their workplace outside of the pointless shouts of those who think they are really showing The Man.

I'm pretty sure most of us work for someone who supports at least one thing we oppose. The question is, is there a time to boycott a business or not? Yes, if it's in the middle of an election cycle or there's an initiative on the ballot, etc. But hating on people for believing differently than you tends to backfire because a lot of believers think being hated is a sign they're doing the right thing. Let this sink in, activists -- if you harass people for their faith, that tends to reinforce their belief God is on their side, NOT diminish it, because there's a long history of "prophets" being murdered and persecuted for unpopular moral stances. If you really want to change this company, fine, organize a boycott, state your intentions clearly and gather support and -- here's a novel idea -- try actually talking to a Mormon and seeing if they might have view on gay rights you didn't think they had. A lot of people once opposed to gay marriage, for example, have changed their minds over the past decade, including the president. Or you can continue to ride by on your Big Wheel and scream at people you've never met.

take it as a justified slam on the owners, not a slam on you. These owners have opposed gay rights, which makes it different than assuming a random mormon feels that way. If its the store I'm thinking of. The bicyclists etc may not realize who exactly they are talking to at the moment, but let's avoid false equivalencies with conservatism, as the anti-homophobes anger is justified. Hopefully they are also yelling at Mi Mero Mole where the owner is even meaner and is probably there sometimes.

Any given equation- I think if they give to discriminatory causes or say horribly degrading things publicly, it's okay to define them by that too.

mr. greener- keep in mind that even if you approach conservative anti-gay Christians nicely about how unfair their religion is to others, they STILL usually react with the idea that you're the intolerant bully who doesn't accept their faith. Maybe these screamers on the bikes are people who've tried your approach and gotten frustrated (not that we shouldn't keep trying it as it does ultimately change things). I'm just saying you don't know the people you are criticizing either. :)

Mr. Greener- try being the target of someone's hateful, abusive "faith" your whole life and then always get told the burden is on you to be so tolerant of their faith.

Mr. Greener- if its the business I'm thinking of BTW they were locally famous for a bit last year for basically saying gay marriage = pedophilia. So are they being attacked for their faith and just "believing differently"? Why do we always have to take so much abuse and still be the nice ones ,because faith is put on such a cultural pedestal?

Points all well taken. But I still don't see how returning hate with hate leads to change. It does, however, lead to more hate. And just because some people will never change their minds doesn't mean the majority of their fellows will remain the same. I never thought I'd see gay marriage -- or a black president -- in my lifetime but I've seen both. A lot of people have changed their hearts over various issues in the past few decades, but the one thing I've always seen set progress back is hate and violence. Ellen DeGeneres did far more for gay rights by her calm example than Perez Hilton ever did by his vicious swipes at anyone who disagreed with him. MLK advanced civil rights by patient nonviolence and it only got set back when things turned violent in the late 60s/early 70s. That's my take.

Isn't the Moreland Farmer's Panty out of business yet? I want to win my "bigots out of business" pool so I hope it is soon.