The first time I saw it myself, it was shared by my friend A. Remember her? She was the person who was PO'd because someone placed a fundamentalist Christian tract on a shelf in the stacks of the library where she works. She called that "littering." Here, however, she was endorsing vandalism. It all depends on whose ox is being gored, I guess.
Yes, it's mild as vandalism goes; but so was the "littering" in the library stacks that upset A. I imagine that these fine Straight Allies put the S back on the marquee after posing for their photo op, and if so, no permanent harm was done. But I'm a lot less impressed by these two boys than they evidently are by themselves. I also feel safe in saying that a photo of someone doing something analogous to, a pro-gay church would not have gotten A's approval, or Gay Marriage USA's. There would probably be a lot of righteous indignation and inflation of the offense. I've been guilty of the same kind of double standard myself in the past; it comes naturally to many human beings, but that's not really an excuse. I'm not demonizing A here either, or even these fine Straight Allies. They're young, maybe someday they'll become more thoughtful. I'm just impressed by how quickly A went from inflating some fundamentalist outreach into littering, to endorsing a minor act of vandalism. What a difference a few days make.
