Equality used to be associated with no special favors and no persecution. Therefore, news of the creation of a gay-friendly map of Asheville businesses sounds like things are going in the other direction. At first, one may wonder how people will know if a business is gay-friendly. If businesses had to be polled, who in their right mind would say they didn’t serve this kind or that? Everybody would be gay-friendly, and there would be no point to the exercise. However, it turns out that Blue Ridge Pride is going entrepreneurial and attempting to establish a gay business guild. The mapping project will help by selling ad space and charging $25 for annual membership, which includes a listing. Chair Amy Huntsman reports gays have no open, print resource for locating gay-friendly businesses, but they have to ask around underground.