The minute the Cracker Barrel restaurant chain
announced that it no longer supported corporate discrimination against gays
I was relieved. Not that their odious former employment policy touched me
personally, but it did affect my psyche.
First, of course, I hated the fact that any
corporation could summarily refuse to hire gay people and, if one slipped
though a human resources crack, feel free to fire gay people just because
they were gay.
Blatant discrimination like that is just
plain dangerous.
But secondly, the thinking person’s boycott
against a corporation that would do such a thing made me completely crazy.
For the simple reason that I was barred from
patronizing Cracker Barrel, I had an unhealthy yearning to do so. Call it
the forbidden fruit syndrome. Colloquially speaking, they forbade fruit and
I became insane with curiosity about the contents of their buildings and the
ingredients in their kitchens.
The ban made my imagination run wild, with
thoughts of cholesterol-laden gravied breakfasts and Gall Bladder Platters
providing that proverbial heart attack on-a-plate. Even the prospect of
cutesy, early-America giftiana in their lobbies (or so I heard tell) made me
giddy with anticipation. Never mind that I hate that stuff—also, for that
matter, chipped beef and biscuits heaped with beige liquid.
The worst manifestation of my Cracker Barrel
Fever came on the road. Hauling our Subaru down 95 to Florida, we always got
hungry just past an exit with a dozen food choices. Then, we’d pass
nothing but enormous Cracker Barrel billboards, taunting us for the next 18
miles. When you really needed a burger and a pit stop it was torture.
Finally, we’d pull into some seedy diner, parking lot filled with rusty El
Caminos and dine among the Bubbas.
Meanwhile, across the street, hungry
homophobes were peeing in comfort and dining on what we imagined to be a
little bit of carbohydrate heaven. But dammit, we kept true to our
convictions.
Well! Now that Cracker Barrel, Inc, has seen
the light and repealed its reprehensible policies, I say hip, hip hooray.
I’m delighted that both gay and straight people are free to work there if
they choose, and equally glad that both gay and straight people are free to
eat there if they choose—especially since we have a Cracker Barrel right
here in our environs.
As for me, the instant the boycott became
history, so did my Cracker Barrel cravings. They evaporated like a
Cosmopolitan in a gay bar. Not to say I’ll avoid the place, but I’m in
no hurry. I far prefer Robin Hood and Crystal for my down home breakfast.
But I’m delighted that one more policy of overt institutional homophobia
has fallen with a thud.
But here’s the thing. With overt corporate
or government sponsored anti-gay discrimination, as despicable as it is, at
least we have the luxury of knowing the enemy. It’s the subtle
discrimination that many of us see on a daily basis that’s most
disturbing.
A prime example was the recent trumped up
story, on talk radio, followed by the weekly press, on men seeking sex in
the Rehoboth Avenue bathrooms.
First, let me say I know first hand that the
graffiti has been painted over and the bathrooms are being monitored. I
know, because intrepid editor Steve Elkins and I actually trotted down those
ill-reputed steps and went to see for ourselves.
But on the larger story, yes, it’s true
that public bathrooms everywhere have always been a haven for sex addicts
seeking the same. Years of research has shown that these sex addicts are
both heterosexual and homosexual, their orientation being moot, as they are
merely seeking a fix. The majority of action happens to happen in men’s
rooms, not because these men are homosexual, but because they’d have to
wait until they were snowboarding in hell and be afflicted by whatever the
sex addict’s equivalent of the DT’s are if they counted on finding
willing partners in ladies rooms. It’s that simple.
So when newspapers lay blame for this stuff
on the gay community they are wrong. At the most, sex-addicted homosexuals
should get only part of the blame, the rest going to sex-addicted
heterosexuals. It’s not a gay thing, it’s not a straight thing, it’s a
very sad subset of the human race thing.
So why is it that a recent newspaper
editorial, while grudgingly acknowledging the economic, social and cultural
contributions of the gay community to our hometown, went on to say that “a
segment of the community is giving the area a black eye, and perhaps
policing itself would be helpful.”
What an insulting and ignorant statement. The
entire gay community should police itself because of a few sick heterosexual
and homosexual people? Okay, all you retirees, restaurant owners,
shopkeepers, hairdressers, lawyers, yoga teachers, realtors, car dealers,
therapists, whatever, take to the streets on bathroom patrol.
And yeah, since there were several rapes in
the area, I want all heterosexuals—that means you barbers, insurance
agents, teachers, boaters, students, housewives, seniors, teens—to answer
the vigilante call and get those rapists under control.
For heaven’s sake, we all rely on the
police to police. The gay community should police itself? Asking me and
Bonnie, our friends and neighbors to make sure the sex addicts are out of
the bathroom is one of the stupidest and most hurtful editorial suggestions
I’ve ever read.
It
makes me want to go have cream chipped beef at Cracker Barrel. But I’m
steering clear of the bathroom. You never know about those randy seniors.
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