Unpopular opinion or a threat? How do you feel about businesses stating that they are Veteran owned and operated?

Who you decide to serve or not is another thing but that’s not what this is about.

Right, by stating that they are x-owned they're not stating that that is the group that they are exclusively serving. Women owned businesses aren't refusing doing business with men, black owned businesses aren't only doing business with black people.

I think you're right that in some communities they are likely drawing more attention from racists, misogynists and bigots, but that's a risk that they are willing to take on and like you said the majority of people don't care.

I think you just may have a genuine misunderstanding of this and why business owners may choose to identify their businesses like this.

Painting a target for fascists or to whom?

This opinion looks a little question-begging to me: do all businesses who declare these kinds of things do so as branding? I myself, don't believe they do as many would be doing so for advocacy for minority groups, for example.

It’s the same as if your company donates to anti-gay causes. Bigots line up to buy your chicken sandwich but others will protest.

Or, you can be Target and piss off both

I would gladly “paint a target on my back”(whatever that vague threat means) if I could open a minority owned store.

It’s important to show people that success and independence is possible. And if some racist/bigoted idiot has a problem with that, it’s equally important to show yourself standing up to that.

Oh no! Now the conservative religious bigoted pukes will target me, which they definitely didn't do to my gay aass already.