An Open Letter to Bruce Springsteen After Bowing to the Gaystapo
Dear Bruce Springsteen,
Hey, man, look, I like a lot of your music. As far as putting a song together goes, you’re one of the best. You’ve certainly earned everything you’ve got. If you were using it to produce more music that would be great. I hate that you aren’t. You see, I’m one of many that believes celebrities are at their best when they stay in their lane.
Or in other words Bruce, I don’t care what you think politically. When I pick Bruce Springsteen, I’m not picking the far-left ideology you bring to the table. I’m picking the music, the music, and you guessed it, the music. Maybe someday, if you run for office, I’ll look at you differently. Right now, you’re a rock star – not a politician and not an activist buddy. Period.
I did some of my growing up near Charlotte, North Carolina. No, I don’t live there right now but I still have family in that part of the country. For that reason, it’s particularly offensive to me that you cancelled your Greensboro show over North Carolina’s “bathroom law”.
Like PayPal’s decision against opening a new business center in Charlotte, it’s hypocritical that you cancelled Greensboro. PayPal, as you’re no doubt aware, cited the “bathroom law” as their reason for turning Charlotte down. Yet they continue to do business in places like Malaysia and Singapore where being LGBT is punishable by law. (Malaysia Penal Code 187 orders lashings and up to 20 years in prison for those convicted of being gay, for example). Bruce, is every location on your tour a pure and clean paradise of tolerance, diversity, and inclusion? How about your previous tours? It’s a slippery slope Bruce — you might want to give the answer to those questions some thought.
While we could go back and forth, playing a game of gotcha by reviewing your concert locations – past and present – and the objectionable social laws some of those places have on the books, let’s not. Games are for kids. Rather Bruce, do you have skin in the game when it comes to “bathroom equality”?
If you do, you’d have no problem if I shared a bathroom with your daughter Jessica. I mean, Jessica and I are both adults, right? Jessica Springsteen is clearly a woman and an attractive one at that. Let’s say it’s a Tuesday, and I wake up feeling a little girlie and then I feel the need to join Jessica in the bathroom. Would that be okay with you Bruce? Do I have the right to share that space with your daughter Jessica?
Now don’t fall back on the knee jerk answer I know you want to use. These aren’t silly or flippant questions. These are real, valid questions a great many of your fans want an answer to. Why? This is where your opposition to North Carolina’s “bathroom law” leads to out there in the real world. “Bathroom equality” would inevitably create situations in which attractive young Jessicas would be forced to give up their bathroom privacy to any Bill, Stan, Lou, or Bubba that might want to occupy the stall next to theirs. See any way this could possibly go wrong, Bruce?
The only thing silly or flippant about the North Carolina “bathroom law” is the undue attention you and others have invested in it. Are there not more serious things going on in America and the world at large? How does “bathroom equality” rise to your stature Bruce? Has celebrity gone to your head after all these years? Maybe you literally are dancing in the dark, Mr. Springsteen.
Sincerely,
Andrew Allen
Image: IMG_8412 via photopin (license)