According to a very-easy-to-find-by-Googling account of the 1995 case, gym customer Irving Silverman went to the front desk seeking a Band-Aid after cutting his finger. There, owner Robert Guzzardi allegedly told him, "We don't want your kind in here. You're careless. You could infect everybody."

In the Philadelphia featured a year earlier in the film Philadelphia, the incident would seem offensive enough that gays and lesbians should've started divesting their money from a business located in the heart of their 'hood. Instead, 12th Street went on to become one of "North America's most gay-popular gyms" according to Gay.com and the place where "all the gay boys go to train," according to the Philly Gay Calendar.

This is what I got to thinking about—Silverman's case, not "gay boys"—when a couple dozen people turned up outside 12th Street armed with stickers, placards, leaflets and a bullhorn Monday afternoon. Not far from a sign declaring the gym has been "stubbornly catering to members since 1986," the protesters, through threats of a boycott, took credit for forcing Guzzardi to sell his majority stake in the business. His so-called crime? Nope, he didn't break out a new repertoire of HIV zingers. He merely donated some $4,400 this year to the campaign coffers of a U.S. senator who equates the love lives of many 12th Street customers to nailing the neighbor's yellow lab.

Kelly Groves, co-chair of Liberty City Gay and Lesbian Democratic Club, the group that organized the rally, explained, "When I figured out our money was, directly or indirectly, going to someone like that, I thought it was like hammering the nails into my own coffin." So, under a placard that read, "12th Street: Santorum Free Zone," Groves said they held the "Victory Rally" so they could publicly call off the boycott, laud Rick Piper (the minority owner who bought Guzzardi out), and celebrate a "very rare political victory for our community."

Considering that latter point, Groves' fellow ralliers had every right to congratulate themselves; if you've forever been on the fringes, why not revel in whatever attaboy you can get?

And considering they're in America, they have every right to vote and campaign for anyone—up to, and including, the neighbor's yellow lab—running against an incumbent with whom they couldn't disagree more.

So why then can't I shake the thought that Guzzardi fell victim to a shameful political gimmick, the type of waah-waah move that's emblematic of everything that this country shouldn't be?

Because blood diamonds this ain't, folks.

Like most things in a big election year, the boycott call was nothing but a ploy to rally support for a candidate, in this case our cover boy, Bob Casey Jr. The gimmick was as ethical as Santorum rallying his deep-conservative base by equating homosexuality with bestiality, even though he has to realize deep down that it's not the same.

If the issue was actually about not wanting to line an oppressors' pockets, as advertised, where were the boycott cries when Silverman died not knowing whether 12th Street would change its AIDS-mocking ways? Or when, two years ago, the Inquirer exposed Guzzardi as one of the biggest donors to "the fund-raising pit bull of the conservative right"? Did the Gayborhood not know the owner of 12th Street wasn't their biggest fan until he sent money Santorum's way? C'mon.

Instead of standing up for principles, cyber recruiting calls were sent out to entice anyone who wants to train with the gay boys. And judging from the Best Gym advertisements affixed to its brick wall—including a City Paper Choice accolade—a heck of a lot of people who say they have a problem with Guzzardi's politics today had no problem patronizing his business, a place that, according to wise-business-decision-making Piper, has long been "a place without politics and pressure to be anything but yourself." Even when Guzzardi was owner.

Now, I won't get into the fact that Guzzardi still actually owns the building that houses 12th Street Gym. Nor will I examine how it's said he continued to profit by owning other Gayborhood buildings as the chants of "Hey hey, ho ho, Rick Santorum's got to go" rang out. The protesters' victory—as miniscule as it may be—is one they should be allowed to savor.

But if this is the way things are heading, with people deciding they'll only engage in a dialogue, or do business, with people who are politically like-minded, the Free and the Brave better move over.

We'll be living in the Land of No Intelligent Debate and Home of Ugly Divisiveness.