|
In December, 1994 the Ku Klux Klan
held an anti-gay demonstration in front of a Merritt Island, Fla. gay bar.
The owners of the establishment decided to open early, and turn what could
have been a negative confrontation, into a party of sorts.
Offering free food and special prices on drinks, the
atmosphere in Bados, before the demonstration, caught this reporter by
surprise. One of the owners, Sam Voss, smiled as he watched camera crews
from the three major networks set up in front of his bar.
"I couldn't buy the amount of publicity we'll get
today", he said.
As the patrons helped themselves to the free food, they
laughed and joked as if they were attending a New Years Eve celebration.
Looking out at the fully robed Klan members, one customer
asked,
"Why are they wearing white after Labor Day?"
Another piped in, "They are all Fascists Against Gays,
or F.A.G.'s for short!" The crowd laughed heartily, despite an
awareness that the force gathering outside sought nothing less than their
destruction.
The demonstration led the newscasts of all three network
affiliates in Orlando, and was shown on CNN.
The following is an interview with a husband and wife who
drove three hours team from FT. Pierce, Fla. to demonstrate in front of a
gay bar.
DANFORTH: Why are you here today?
ED WILLEY: To let people know that they have a queer bar in their
town.
DANFORTH: Don't you feel that your presence here is giving the bar
a lot of free publicity?
ED WILLEY: No. We're just here to let them know that we're not going to put up with their filthy, degenerate
lifestyle.
DANFORTH: From what do you base your beliefs? From the bible?
ED WILLEY: No. You can read newspapers, you can read medical
documents, they do filthy things to themselves and we're not going to put up with it. You know, that's not human to do that
stuff.
DANFORTH: Is your level of hatred any stronger for gay men than it
is for gay women?
ED WILLEY: Any, ah, we don't like, you can't call them gay because
that's the wrong word to use. Queer, that's a different word.
TRACEY WILLEY: Faggot!
ED WILLEY: Ya, faggot! Faggot's a good word to use. They're not
human. I don't know where their lifestyle came from. I really don't wanna
know. I ah, don't learn it and try to think of what they do. I just listen
to what people tell me and the literature that I read. And you can see how
they act you know. I mean, the guys act like girls, the girls act like
guys. What is it with them? I have no idea.
DANFORTH: Do you really believe that this protest is going to do
any damage to the gay community?
ED WILLEY: We're here to let these city people know there's a queer
bar in their town. To ah, to stay away. Most people from out of town, they
want to go to a bar. They walk into this bar and find out it's queer, so
we try to keep people out.
TRACEY WILLEY: There are children in this neighborhood.
DANFORTH: What exactly are you afraid of gays doing to those
children?
TRACEY WILLEY: Well I think it goes right along with the
whole brainwashing thing that the government is doing today to say that
gays, that it's fine to be queer. To let your children grow up thinking
it's cool to be queer.
DANFORTH: Give me specifics. What exactly do you believe that the government is doing to promote the gay lifestyle to
children?
TRACEY WILLEY: They teach in the school system that it's OK.
They teach that it's fine that Heather has two moms. That's not right.
ED WILLEY: They do teach that in schools.
TRACEY WILLEY: That's not what you teach young children. You
teach young children to stand up and be proud. Not to bow down and lay
down with queers.
DANFORTH: Are you suggesting that gays can recruit straight children?
ED WILLEY: That's what they have to do, they have to recruit.
DANFORTH: You actually believe that they can convince a
heterosexual to become homosexual?
ED WILLEY: Oh sure. Sure.
 TRACEY WILLEY: A heterosexual that
doesn't have any pride in themselves.
ED WILLEY: They can turn 'em over.
TRACEY WILLEY: Ya! If you don't have any pride in yourself.
ED WILLEY: They recruit young people.
DANFORTH: If science proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that
homosexuality was hereditary and gay people truly have no choice, would
that make their lifestyle acceptable?
ED WILLEY: No! They still have to become queers some kind of way.
DANFORTH: Do you feel that they should end AIDS research?
ED WILLEY: Ah... (4 second pause) Hey, you know...
TRACEY WILLEY: It should be going on 'cause there are plenty
of people that got it from transfusions who don't live queer lifestyles.
ED WILLEY: ...lay down with dogs , get up with fleas." You lay
down with queers... and you get up with
AIDS.
DANFORTH: Are you suggesting that all gays are infected with HIV?
ED WILLEY: (Laughs) Sure, they have to be. If one of them isn't
infected with AIDS, they sleep around. That's what queers do, they sleep
around.
DANFORTH: All of them?
ED WILLEY: Oh ya. All of them.
TRACEY WILLEY: You gotta put in your article that AIDS is
nature's way of fag bashing.
DANFORTH: When you do protests such as this, are you hoping for
violence?
ED WILLEY: No. We try to do a silent protest.
TRACEY WILLEY: We didn't come to foul-mouth anybody.
DANFORTH: Since you're not required to, why do you notify the
Sheriff's department before you hold protests such as these?
ED WILLEY: So that we don't have a confrontation. By the law being
here it keeps us protected. You can see that there's just a few of us,
compared to many more on their side. They're all little kids. They recruit
them to grow up and be gay.
DANFORTH: One last thing—the owners of Bados told me to invite
you in for a beer on the house when your protest is over.
ED WILLEY: No thanks.
Originally published in Space
Coast Review
Danforth's photos are from a January 2000 KKK-NAACP confrontation
in Lake City, Florida. A photo story from that event is now online.
Go
to the photo story
Home Imagine
MediaHumor Factory
PhotoContact
|
