We’ve taken a few days to wrap our brains around the 6/30 SCOTUS ruling on 303 Creative v. Elenis, and we’ve found that the words of GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders – GLAD Senior Director of Civil Rights and Legal Strategies, Mary Bonauto, sums it up best. This is not the broad win for the Alliance Defending Freedom (the anti-LGBT hate group backing Lorie Smith’s case) that we fear it is. However, it doesn’t NOT set a dangerous precedent. We offer this nuanced message because removal of hope is dangerous and defeating, and hope is NOT lost.

We can’t change the minds of the 303 Creative’s in the world, who create gay and trans demons in their imaginations, against whom they then discriminate. Can’t fix hate like that. We, the world, can work on changing the minds of everyone in the middle such that one day the Lorie Smiths of the world look up and realize they’re all alone. We, the Gaymber specifically, can continue our path to increasing the Tucson business community’s cultural competency, step by step, business by business. There’s no room for hate like 303 Creative’s in our business community sandbox.

Now more than ever we must remember that “we are better together, and we are better when all of us live in a world that is created around our highest values, not fear or hatred” (thank you Transgender Law Center for that message!).

In Pride,

The Tucson LGBT Chamber of Commerce, AKA The Gaymber
“Inclusive Business is Good Business!”