Yesterday was National Marriage Equality Day, an effort launched by Atlanta-based Equally Wed magazine to encourage consumers to patronize businesses that support same-sex marriage rights.  The response, originally focused on Starbucks but then expanded, is intended to counter Chick-fil-A and its anti-gay leadership in the wake of CEO Dan Cathy's recent interview where he stated his chicken chain was “guilty as charged” when it came to opposing marriage equality.

The event has garnered national media attention and almost 35,000 checked on Facebook that they planned to participate.

Equally Wed is also sponsoring a photo contest for the best pictures of those participating in National Marriage Equality Day.

Instead of supporting large corporations yesterday, a group of local business owners and activists hope that supporters of gay rights will patronize locally gay-owned and gay-friendly businesses today, Wednesday, Aug. 8, in what's being called National Support Gay-Loving Local Independent Business Day.

Organized by Kiki Carr from David Magazine and MondoHomo and Doria Roberts, who recently made national headlines after firing back at Florida Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll when Carroll said "usually black women that look like me don't engage in relationships like that" when addressing rumors of her own sexual orientation, the event is a planned alternative to National Marriage Equality Day.

National Support Gay-Loving Local Independent Business Day's Facebook event has some 600 planned attendees. The goal is simple, to patronize and support locally owned businesses that support the community.

From the event's Facebook page:

Show your appreciation for gay & gay-friendly small businesses and local independent businesses that employ & serve gays and everyone else -- without destroying our cultures, local economies, good jobs or environments!

All you gay-loving small businesses that wanna participate -- just post up here!! We wanna hear from ALL our community-supporting, culture-creating local independent businesses!

Support the actual pillars of our communities -- NOT the soul-sucking, culture-killing, small-business-decimating chain corporations who happen not to hate gays! Don't support chain corporations -- even the ones who like gays -- it's bad for people, small business, the economy, the environment, culture, creativity, and our communities!    

We here at The GA Voice hope to take part, as well. If you or your business would like to advertise in our paper or website, please email [email protected] for more information.

But if you were to “like” us on Facebook, share one of our articles with your friends or even follow us on Twitter, you'll help us expand our audience and help us get the word out about what we do and who we serve. We're in the business of getting the news out to the community and with your help, we can reach one more person who may not have known about our paper, our mission or the community we serve.

We also have a list of businesses that we've worked with over the years here. There are more than 100 businesses in 18 different categories listed, from car dealerships to therapists and everything in between. We encourage our readers to support our advertisers. The more business we can send them, the more likely they are to support us and our mission moving forward.

And isn't that what supporting local business is all about?

Top photo: Radial Cafe is one of many gay-owned businesses in Atlanta (file)