After the #PaintTheirHandsBack Controversy What Are You Going to Do Now?
With the buzzing controversy surrounding Bench and the #PaintTheirHandsBack hashtag, what are you going to do now?
Whether Bench intentionally created a controversy over their Love All Kinds of Love campaign or not; whether the #PaintTheirHandsBack hashtag that followed was a marketing ploy or not, shouldn't be the issue of focus.
It's not that the truth about these 2 things doesn't matter, it still does. But there is a more pressing issue at hand and that is:
What are you going to do to create a future wherein the LGBT community is treated as equals and having equal rights just like every "straight" person has?
Freedom from discrimination, freedom of expression, and freedom to love, are basic human rights that at present our society is denying to the LGBT community. Tweet this
And this is a more pressing matter and more deserving of our attention and energy than throwing accusations, speculating and going down the rabbit hole of name calling.
Perhaps the most important thing to take away from Bench's campaign and the controversy surrounding it, is that it got us talking, It sparked a conversation on an issue that for a long time we have been avoiding and denying upfront.
Gay relationships exist, LGBT love exists and our "kind of love" deserves respect, acceptance, and recognition just as any loving relationship between 2 consenting heterosexual adults.
Twitter was buzzing with this sentiment and it wasn't just the lesbians, gays,bisexuals, transgenders and queers who were voicing out this sentiment, a number of straight people also did. Although, it wasn't the entire nation backing up this sentiment, finally people were standing up for what is right.
So what are you going to do now?
Being cynical is not the strategy that would paint us the future that we want. If everything was a marketing ploy and we fell for it, it's not because we were stupid. It's because we are rallying behind a cause that is worth fighting for.
Go back and remember why you vented on Twitter when you saw the "CENSORED" billboard depicting the love between 2 men. Because you saw the injustice and that this is unacceptable. We made a ruckus and challenged the status quo. We wanted a change. We wanted our society to be better.
Let's not allow this controversy of whether it's a marketing ploy or not derail us from what we are fighting for and rallying behind. Let us not focus on the negative. Let us put our energy behind on what matters. Not on Bench, not on the hashtag. But on making a difference, making an impact and changing the world for the better.
And what we need is you, your undying faith for the cause we are fighting for, your initiative to take action and get us to the future that we all wanted when we typed in the hashtag #PaintTheirHandsBack.
