Okay, if you’re talking about “Disco Demolition Night” on Thursday, July 12, 1979, that was a joint promotion between a radio DJ and Chicago White Sox owner and showman Bill Veeck. He’s the same guy who back in the early ‘50s put a midget at the plate, who drew a walk, and was then replaced by pinch runner at first. And the same guy who wrote
Veeck As in Wreck: The Autobiography of Bill Veeck.
* Thursday was inspired genius since it’s a one-day early start on the weekend.
And a chance for teenagers and young adults to act wild. Plus . . .
People put together things in their own way and have complex social views (even if woefully inaccurate!). To some people, disco may have represented African-American music. To other people, LGBTQ+ music before there was even such a term. And some young people may be anti-gay or anti-lesbian because . . .
they have an approach-avoidance conflict, in which something both attracts them and repels them, or
they may have a habit of the high energy approach from religion, or
because LGBTQ+ persons make for a convenient scapegoat, or ‘other,’ for the person who is buying into the stereotype.
Any combo and more may be why some people have a problem with someone else being gay or lesbian or trans or bi- or queer or different in some other fashion.
I sometimes think the destructive side of human nature is at least as complex as the constructive side. And of course, they’re yin-yang and play off each other.