MI Hate: Joyce Daniels

I do not know Joyce Daniels. She doesn't know me either. She probably doesn't know any gay New Yorkers, if I had to guess.

And yet, as a mayoral candidate (now mayor) of Troy, Michigan (a city right next to the one in which I grew up), she posted on facebook: “I think I am going to throw away my I Love New York carrying bag now that queers can get married there.”

There is so much wrong with this. To suggest that one should discard a product simply because it was made in a place with disagreeable public policy is not a new idea. That, after all, is behind the Fair Trade movement. However, Daniels wasn't making a blanket statement that, for instance, she wouldn't keep things made in China because the country has a communist government. She was singling out one group with a hateful slur.

She has since removed the statement, and made some comment that it perhaps wasn't the best language to use, but she said it. She can't take it back. It's floating out there now with all its negative energy and political ramifications. 

This is why I don't identify as queer - I know that it's become an umbrella term for the LGBTA movement for some people, including one of the undergraduate student groups at MSU. But I will not claim hate and ignorance. I will not be discarded like this tote she has thrown out. I will stand up, because for me, that is what Committing in the Mitten is all about.