Tinted.

A friend recently told me a story about his driving experience on the highway in which he saw a bumper sticker reading "Gay Pride."

Now, this isn't necessarily an uncommon occurance in Minneapolis. While we're not necessarily San Francisco, a city in which rimjobs are giving Rice-a-Roni a run for their money in redefining the meaning of "the San Francisco Treat," Minneapolis is pretty liberal with respect to their homosexual population. I mean, after all, we have Sex World and Gay 90's; both establishments which cater to the homosexual demographic. So, in that respect, seeing a "Gay Pride" sticker was fairly inconsequential.

The interesting part about the car, however, was that all the windows were tinted, front to back, rendering the phrase all-but-ineffective.

Gay pride? Eh... not so much, apparently.

Of course, I understand the backlash that can accompany any sort of homosexual agenda. Death threats, ridicule and every other form of negativity are just par for the course, and well-known Matthew Shepherd story is just an example of the lengths to which people will go to suppress ideas.

But homosexuals have options. Besides hiding behind a veil and waiting for all the old conservatives in government to eventually die, they can own their lifestyle and put themselves completely out there.

This goes for any underdog opinion, thought, or lifestyle choice. If you have a belief, stand up for yourself. Defend yourself. If you're proud enough to hold that belief, odds are the majority of the free-thinking, liberal population will be inclined to respect your viewpoint, and the world will be better for having another person who's not afraid to shout "I'm gay!" in the face of social malaise. If you believe it, you should believe it enough to say it loudly.

And if not, you can just be a guy driving around with tinted windows, having a blog written about you for meekly proclaiming, "go gay people!" Your choice.