Boycott Utah? Blogger, Please.

I understand the anger in the gay community right now but this isn't productive:

Gay rights activist John Aravosis, whose well-trafficked AmericaBlog.com is urging the boycott, is unapologetic about targeting Utah rather than California, where voters defined marriage in the state Constitution as a heterosexual act. Utah, Aravosis said, “is a hate state,” and on this issue, “at a fundamental level, the Utah Mormons crossed the line. . . . They just took marriage away from 20,000 couples and made their children bastards. You don’t do that and get away with it.”

Jim Burroway responds:

There are businesses I refuse to patronize on principle, even though I’m sure they don’t miss my dollars much. While I question the effectiveness of boycotts as a tactic, I’m all for it in principle as long as the target is appropriate.  But boycotting an entire state? I’m not so sure what that will accomplish. It seems to me we risk harming those who had nothing to do with this, while letting others businesses in California, Arizona and elsewhere off the hook.

Look, guys: we lost an initiative. We lost it by a much smaller margin than in the past, and the next generation will pass it. Boycott as you feel like; protest by all means. But in the end, even constitutional protections require popular support. We have come from nowhere to a near-majority in less than fifteen years since the first marriage case. We have marriage equality in two states, and civil unions in many others. We are winning. If we do not blow it in a hissy-fit that borders on intolerance.