RENWL

Toms Shoes Founder Apologizes, Gay Response Is Disgusting

Cover of Blake Mycoskie’s book on philanthropy and giving.

(we’re buying it)

There’s a prominent sector of gay America that has a huge hard-on for victimhood.  They just can’t seem to identify without it.  As we reported on Friday in our post Toms Shoes Partnered With Gay Hate Religious Group Focus On Family?, it was revealed that Toms Shoes founder Blake Mycoskie was a headliner at an event hosted by anti-gay religious group Focus On The Family.  It was also revealed that Focus On The Family had declared that they are currently “working to become a TOMS international distributor in Africa.”

As to be expected the news of  Toms connection with Focus On Family created an instant uproar in the LGBT community for those in the know since Tom’s Shoes has always been considered a very socially conscious and progressive brand.  One would think this would include support of equality.  So naturally in addition to the anger about this there was also a good measure of feeling betrayed.  The rage aimed at Mycouskie by LGBTs since the story broke has been loud and clear.

In the early AM on Saturday however Mycoski posted an apology and explanation on Toms Shoes Facebook Wall and his personal blog Start Something That Matters. It follows:

July 9th, 2011
A Sincere Apology
136 Comments
Written by Blake Mycoskie
Topics: Uncategorized

Had I known the full extent of Focus on the Family’s beliefs, I would not have accepted the invitation to speak at their event. It was an oversight on my part and the company’s part and one we regret. In the last 18 months we have presented at over 70 different engagements and we do our best to make sure we choose our engagements wisely, on this one we chose poorly.

Furthermore, contrary to what has been reported, Focus on the Family is not a TOMS giving partner.

So there is no misunderstanding created by this mistake, let me clearly state that both TOMS, and I as the founder, are passionate believers in equal human and civil rights for all. That belief is a core value of the company and of which we are most proud.

Whew! Talk about a sigh of relief.  Toms Shoes is a good organization and they’ve done some amazing work for the poor in Africa. It’s an outstanding business model and the success of it is critical in terms of the future creation of more philanthropic businesses to emerge in our society.  So we were very happy to read that all this was a misunderstanding of sorts.

But then we read the commentary that followed Mycoskie’s post. Here’s the first one we saw.

Mycoskie attends a Southern Baptist church. I think it’s fairly clear where he stands on gay issues.

And we immediately responded to it:

Um, to the person who said “Mycoskie attends a Southern Baptist church. I think it’s fairly clear where he stands on gay issues.”

You’re just a fucking ass. Grow up. Stop the “I love being persecuted” drama. The man apologized. Get over it.

There were many more like this person’s negative response to Mycoski’s post that we would have loved to respond to in the same tonality that we responded with to the one above. But we decided not to waste our time and write a blog post about it instead.

Gays need to quit with the “no matter what” unforgiving bullshit. It’s really not cool.  We are appalled at the lack of compassion, understanding and forgivingness many gays demonstrate upon the misstep and sincere admission of such by those who are not gay.   No seriously. It needs to fucking stop yesterday. We’ve been feeling this way for awhile. It’s not cute at all.

We didn’t say anything about some of the nasty commentary we read AFTER Tracy Morgan apologized, met with LGBT youth, went back to Tenessee to apologize—–the man clearly was doing everything he could to right his wrongs for Christ’s sake.  We couldn’t understand why so many gays were not satisfied with the outcome of the scenario.

We appreciated his efforts because they demonstrated that it is just not acceptable to dehumanize LGBT folks anymore.  And the whole nation got to observe just how unacceptable it has become whether they support marriage equality or not or whatever their religious beliefs are concerning homosexuality. You must respect gay people regardless of the way you feel about them was the message loud and clear.

BUT YET ‘N’ STILL there were those gay folks who continued to spew the hate. Likewise, here they are again doing the same after Blake Mycouski (whose every word on the matter we believe by the way), apologized for his lack of complete knowledge about the religious group Focus On Family. Many gays posted on his blog with incredulousness at his claim of not knowing about Focus On Family’s anti gay marriage track record by asking repeatedly how could he not know?  Well that’s easy:

HE’S NOT FUCKIN’ GAY. COULD IT BE THAT BECAUSE HE’S NOT GAY THERES A HIGH PROBABILITY THAT MAYBE HE DOESN’T SPEND MUCH TIME FOCUSING ON WHO HATES GAYS AND WHO DOESN’T?

If we had a dollar for every time we were grooving to an old Chaka Khan tune in the company of a straight white friend of ours not in the know and them innocently asking us, ” is that Aretha Franklin?”

If we had a dollar for every time we experienced that we wouldn’t be blogging. We’d have a staff clamoring to do it for us for free like Arianna Huffington.

Like the world does not revolve around our deep passion for soul music neither does it revolve around gay rights. Sorry to break the bad news to some gay folks out there in Harvey Milk land but it just doesn’t work that way.  And the expectation that it should is childish and silly narcissism.

This is an opportunity to create awareness. Not condemnation.  Time to stop the love affair with victimhood.  Be a part of the solution.  Not the problem.

Blake Mycoskie RENWL accepts your apology.  And we understand how this could’ve happened without your complete knowledge of Focus On Family activities.

We hope in the near future to further show your sincerity that you partner on a media project with one of  several  LGBT organizations with a mission that focuses on creating awareness and safety for LGBTs in communities across America and in the world. Until then, keep up the good work. You make a difference.

Checkout a review of Mycoskie’s book Start Something That Matters and where to purchase it online: Start Something That Matters Book