In search of the gay dollar

- Just my opinion…

Let me be clear - I am fully aware that people have the right to choose how they run their business. I get that.

But let’s not lie about it. Please don’t tell me you can’t support The Gayly because you’re a Christian when you have LGBT citizens coming to your store in droves spending money in your “Christian” establishment.

This is the case with a café in Oklahoma City where owner’s son originally told The Gayly they could not display a gay newspaper in their restaurant along with the other publications. He said it was because the owner, his mom, was a Christian.

I’m just curious...does your mom pay her tithe with that dirty gay money from LGBT customers?

After a huge negative response from the LGBT community, the restaurant’s attorney (referring to himself as “just a friend”) contacted The Gayly editor for a sit-down meeting.

I met with five representatives from the café and a person from the LGBT community. The café didn’t really want to distribute the paper, but they had gotten so many negative calls in response to their denial to distribute, they wanted to “make this right somehow.”

At the conclusion of this meeting, they again did not allow us to place the paper in their foyer. I mentioned our business group “DBA” the day before - and at the meeting was a person from that group who attended the meeting. The representatives said they would talk about both topics and get back to us.

This event happened nearly two months ago - I never received a follow up. I’ve since returned to check if they would allow us to distribute The Gayly and I spoke again to the owner’s son. He said they have been really busy...out of town, “Me and my brother, we just haven’t talked about it.”

I told him that I needed an answer by the end of that week (May 24). At the time of this printing, I had yet to hear from anyone from the café.

Sadly, it appears they are afraid of offending and losing business from a very small group who are offended by the very sight of a gay publication, but they don’t mind offending and risking the loss of business of a much larger segment of society who only want the same rights and liberties guaranteed by the Constitution to each and every individual.

The Gayly is working to set a higher standard for LGBT media. We are award-winning newspaper and we are selective in what type of advertising we’ll run. However, in many ways, we are no different than other publications displayed at this store. Our only difference is we cover the issues of interest to the LGBT community and its allies.

The café has joined DBA and deemed themselves to be gay-friendly, however, they still will not display an LGBT newspaper in their restaurant or show any outward signs of support. This is a huge problem facing the LGBT population; we are not like African-Americans in the civil rights era of unrest in the ‘60’s.

If a gay man or woman is sitting at your lunch counter, you might not even know it. So, supposedly gay friendly companies can keep themselves “in the closet” simply by not attracting attention to themselves. They want the “gay” dollar, but don’t care whether we get the respect we deserve.

Have we been turned down by other businesses to distribute The Gayly? Sure. But never quite in this “back-door equality” manner.

So to those out there saying, “They should have the right to run their business as they see fit without having equality shoved down their throat.” We agree. At the same time, it is the right of this community to be aware of those businesses that support us openly so you can choose to spend money with those businesses brave enough to put themselves on the front lines of this battle for equality.

by Robin Dorner, Editor in Chief

The Gayly – June 13, 2014 @ 10:20am