Most of the protests we’ve seen lately have involved the Black community, mostly due to the noticeable slayings of Black people at the hands of White police officers. It was almost a year ago as I was watching the news coverage from a hospital bed as communities all over the country—and even some across the world—went crazy as looters and vandals broke into businesses and burned buildings to the ground after George Floyd’s death.

Of course, protesters have been lumped into the same category because, as they chanted things like “No justice, no peace,” it’s provided others the opportunity to get down with their bad selves and harm the innocent. As a result, it has made it very difficult for many folks to get behind the Black Lives Matter movement, and the message has been tainted.

Since then, the list of other Black people who have been killed has increased, and with the trial of Derek Chauvin, the man who pressed his knee to Floyd’s neck and essentially snuffed his life out, drawing to a close, I have this feeling that we’re in for another summer of chaos and more innocent people in the crossfire.

However, it should be pointed out that there are people protesting for other reasons, as there are other injustices in the world. Take the LGBT community, for example. A group of rainbow-flag wielding protesters set up shop this weekend outside a building in Appleton, Wisconsin, where there is an electronic sign with a message that includes an F-word with more than four letters that is quite offensive to folks who are gay.

Like me.

The sign has caused quite a stir. While the language is protected by the First Amendment, many folks are offended by the word “faggot” as it has often been used as a slur by people against gay people because they believe we’re unclean or unholy. As a result of this sign, many in Appleton have complained about it, and a protest formed.

The single word is not the only offensive thing on the sign, though. One panel features the image of the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy. For those of you a little rusty on your history, this man turned blacklisting into an art form and used his power and influence to make public figures out to be communists because of certain associations. McCarthy also was responsible for the “Lavender Scare,” a crusade against homosexuals because he believed they were communists, too.

The sign made me want to join in protest, too. While the businessman, Jamie Boyce, has the same rights of free speech that we all do under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, that amendment doesn’t mean other folks can’t get pissed off at what he says and condemn him as an arrogant fool. To hear Boyce’s feeble explanation for his language and imagery on the local television stations made me think he needed to hear those who disagree all the more.

I checked out the evening news to see if the protest went off without a hitch. Fortunately, it did. There was chanting. There were signs. There was irritation, and there was ire. There wasn’t any looting. There wasn’t any shooting. No innocent people were hurt or killed in the process. 

Of course, hateful language doesn’t rise to the same level as summary execution, but the LGBT community could also come out in force about the murders of transgender people that seem to fade into the mists of social consciousness. Innocent lives are lost in our community, too. The Human Rights Campaign recorded at least 37 transgender people violently killed in the U.S. in 2020, and so far in 2021, it’s reporting 14 transgender murders.

It raises the question about why LGBT people aren’t rising up with the same wrath and fury that people of color have. There’s no doubt that hate crimes make our blood boil, too, but are we afraid that, if we force the issue like the Black community has, the malcontents that have created alienation for the cause might dilute our message, too? How do we push for social change without burning our neighbors?

The answer is out there somewhere, but I am still elated to know that the act of protesting, which is also part of our First Amendment free speech rights, can still be accomplished in a civilized fashion. If we could figure out how to get the criminal element out of the Black Lives Matter marches, maybe we could finally see some social change on that front, which then might eventually pave the way for justice in the LGBT community.