A Knoxville, Tennessee community paper (which in this case should be translated as right-wing bigot rag) agreed to run an ad for a National Coming Out Day event called “Come Out Knoxville” only after the words “gay” and “lesbian” were entirely removed from the ad.
Wow. Perhaps the “community” should ban gays and lesbians from appearing at the event as well!
Publisher Steve Hunley released a statement saying “The Fountain City Focus is a community newspaper. Our focus is on the positive aspects of community. We choose not to involve ourselves in controversial social, cultural or religious issues. We prefer to leave that to the mainstream media.” The positive aspects.
Here's the kicker. Gary Elgin, director of the Rainbow Community Awareness Project, actually thanked Hunley for allowing the censored ad to be run. Said Elgin: “Steve Hunley is a very kind man and I think he has made steps to embrace us as a community. He's not going to run the ad as we had designed it, but he has agreed to run an ad of one of our events and that's a step. That's building a bridge, board by board.”
What steps has he made to embrace us? As far as I can see, he's a right wing bigot who'd rather we all disappeared. I understand it must be tough-going in Knoxville but thanking Hunley? It's like thanking the bully on the playground who just punched you in the face.
Newspaper agrees to run watered-down ad promoting gay event [wate]
Video on the site as well.
