Instead of asking the local owner of a B&B why he was hanging a rainbow flag outside of his business establishment, they automatically assumed he was making a political statement about gay rights...
He wasn't, but said he didn't mind that that's the way it was taken, but, from the article:
The entire community turned against the poor man...
...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.
Why did he have the flag, you ask?
Well, isn't that nice? It was a gift from his son who went to a museum...
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."
It was not a slap in the face of "conservative moral values," it wasn't "flying a Nazi flag in a Jewish neighborhood." (Sounds like the resident who said that has a flair for the dramatic... closet case perhaps?)
I guess this entire blog is like flying a Nazi flag, eh? Yeah, the fundie's are sssooooo persecuted, living in a society where people can say what they want and hang a flag, but they can't feed them to the lions... one wonders if they truly know what persecution is, eh?
But Mr. Knight is holding his head high:
Thank you, Mr. Knight, and if I am ever driving through Meade, Kansas, I will stop by. And I will let everyone I know to do so, as well. It may not be much, but you deserve better than your fellow Kansasians have given you... a lot better...
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.
1 comment:
Good Lord, talk about over-reacting...those people owe that man an apology!!
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