Sunshine, lollipops and rainbows,
Everything that’s wonderful is what I feel when we’re together,
Brighter than a lucky penny,
When you’re near the rain cloud disappears, dear,
And I feel so fine just to know that you are mine.
Boo!
Rainbows are bad.
‘Rainbow flag creates controversy’
Tucker Jankosky
KWCH 12 Eyewitness News
Thursday, July 20, 2006For J.R. and Robin Knight, owning a bed and breakfast is everything they’ve always wanted. “We came here in search of our dreams, my wife always wanted a bed and breakfast and I always wanted a restaurant,” says California native J.R. Knight.
But recently their dream has turned into a nightmare, all because of a flag they’re flying outside. “It’s a rainbow flag – to some people it means friendship to some people it means gay pride,” says Knight. But for Knight, it was just a souvenir from his 12-year-old son.
Knight says the local Meade newspaper is trying to put him out of business and was frustrated when it ran an article about the flag and did not even bother to contact him regarding why he put it up. In fact, most people we spoke to in Meade said they didn’t even know what the flag meant until the article ran. But once word got around, the reaction was harsh.
Knight says the radio station has called him threatening to remove the restaurant’s commercials if he does not remove the flag. A local pastor stopped by said it was equivalent to hanging women’s panties on a flag pole. When Knight jokingly said he might consider that – the preacher said he would have him arrested.
His business has suffered – down to only a few local customers. The folks in Meade who’ve boycotted say it’s too offensive for them to eat there.
Local resident, Keith Klassen says the flag is a slap in the face to the conservative community of Meade. “To me it’s just like running up a Nazi flag in a Jewish neighborhood. I can’t walk into that establishment with that flag flying because to me that’s saying that I support what the flag stands for and I don’t,” says Klassen.
Knight says it’s not meant to be a gay pride symbol but he doesn’t mind if that’s how it’s taken.
“Any gay or lesbian people that do stop by will be treated with the best service I can give you,” says Knight.
But despite the local ridicule and loss of business, Knight is determined to stand his ground. “When this rainbow flag shreds, I will buy another one, and another one, and another one – just like my American flag, I’ll buy another one.”
Knight says his son gave him the flag after a trip to Dorothy’s house, a museum about the Wizard of Oz. The flag reminded the boy of “somewhere over the rainbow.”
The story was soon picked up by AP, and syndicated all over the place. The choicest quote is from waitress Vicky Best of Meade: “It’s hard enough to keep your kids on the straight and narrow without outside influences like that. We stay in a small town to stay away from the crap like that that’s happening in big cities.”
Yeah right: one look at a rainbow flag and the next thing you know Jack’s dumped Jill for John…
Notwithstanding the desire of some for a quiet life of homophobic desperation, as a result of the surrounding weirdness, the story has become bigger and bigger, and the “tiny town” of Meade, Kansas has become an “unlikely hotbed of gay rights debate” (Deb Gruver and Dion Lefler, The Wichita Eagle, August 15, 2006).
In a recent development, the two cowardly, homophobic brothers arrested for stealing the rainbow flag from the Knights have apologised for their action, stating that ‘”Even though we may not agree with what our neighbor is doing, we cannot impose our beliefs on someone else, and we certainly cannot step on their rights,” Todd and Joshua Postlewait said in a letter this week to the editor of the Meade County News‘.
Closer to home, Daylesford council’s decision to disallow the raising of the rainbow flag during an annual celebration has gone largely unremarked; the extent of the council’s concern reflected in the fact that the denial has been issued despite the festival ‘injecting several million dollars into the local economy’!
‘No gay flags for Daylesford’ (Doug Pollard, Melbourne Star, August 3, 2006); ‘Against all flags [Ha! That’s anarchy!], Daylesford sparks a flap somewhere over the rainbow’, (Orietta Guerrera, The Age, July 26, 2006).
I say:
Let’s rock!
- Boys in bikinis
Girls on surfboards
Everybody’s rockin’
Everybody’s fruggin’
Twistin’ round the fire
Havin’ fun
Bakin’ potatoes
Bakin’ in the sun
Put on your noseguard
Put on the lifeguard
Pass the tanning butter
Here comes a stringray
There goes a manta ray
In walked a jelly fish
There goes a dogfish
Chased by a catfish
In flew a sea robin
Watch out for that pirahna
There goes a narwhal
Here comes a bikini whale!
See also the Wikipedia page on the Rainbow flag — apparently the homophobic editor of the Meade newspaper referred to it in the original article attacking the Knights.
