Time to -˜call in gay’

With the success of Proposition 8 leaving much of the US gay and lesbian community at boiling point, two gay marriage activists went on the online offensive last week, calling the community to -œcall in gay and not go to work.

However despite wide publicity, Associated Press reported -œspotty participation rates, with some gay rights activists agreeing with the concept but questioning the effect.

Day Without a Gay was organised to coincide with International Human Rights Day and was modelled on the highly publicised stopwork protests from the Latino migrant community in 2006.

Organised online, the campaign aimed to show how much the gay community and its allies contributes to society.

Supporters were encouraged not to spend money and instead spend the day helping at a charitable organisation.

Many in San Francisco’s Castro district reportedly agreed with the message, but not with the economic timing of the work stoppage. One manager said he didn’t want to go on strike because he felt his employer had been supportive above and beyond the call of duty and didn’t want to adversely affect the business.