Rhea County, Gay Mecca

Mercury News

Commissioner J.C. Fugate, who introduced the measure, also asked the county attorney to find a way to enact an ordinance banning homosexuals from living in the county.

"We need to keep them out of here," Fugate said.

This begs the question: What is there in Rhea County that homosexuals want? Are homosexuals massing at the border, demanding entry? What's the big deal about Rhea County?

And when someone tells you not to do something, isn't that the greatest incentive to do it? So let's all go to Rhea County!

After all, they have an airport with a 4500 foot runway, with lights and all. The Magnolia House is a local bed and breakfast, which screams gay, doesn't it? Then we can all go to the Lock and Dam on Watts Bar. It "offers unlimited opportunities for any type of water recreation."

Well, that's not everybody's bag. But there are eighteen different Baptist Churches to invade, and seven other denominations if the Baptists run us off.

While in Dayton, we can visit the Scopes Museum/Rhea County Courthouse, where Dayton declared teaching about monkeys off limits - the tour is free! The Dayton Golf & Country Club is off of Highway 27 (no monkeys allowed, heehee). Another bed and breakfast, the Bailey House, is found at the old home of John Thomas Scopes. Yes, that Scopes. Then we can hike the Laurel-Snow Pocket Wilderness, 710 acres of completely barren woodland.

And that's it.

Hmm. I'm not getting why all these homosexuals are clamoring to get into Rhea County. If Commissioner Fugate really wants to burn the homosexuals, they should do something that makes us want to be there, and then not let us in. Something spectacular like offering Martha Stewart amnesty. We'd all want to be there then!

Or how about this: offering gay marriage licenses! Wouldn't that chaff our hides? "Ha, ha, you bad homosexuals - you could be married here if it weren't illegal for you to be here! Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah!" Ooooo, that would get us, wouldn't it?

Then we couldn't stop ourselves. We'd be compelled to come in. They'd marry us, then slap us into handcuffs, and toss us into an overcrowded cell full of other married, exuberant homosexuals. What a honeymoon that would be!

And Comissioner Fugate could rest easy knowing that all those homosexuals were under lock and key, being punished properly. It must be awful for him now, thinking about how all the homosexuals want to come in and live next to him. How can the man bear to go to Chattanooga at all, with its gay bars and its AIDS resources center and its full service florists?

You see, Commissioner Fugate? Chattanooga is showing you how it's done. If you're really serious about keeping the homosexuals out, you need to make it worth their while to be there. Open a gay and lesbian center, get a gay teenager support group going. Have a drag contest! Then you might have a few homosexuals around to rail against.

As it is, this just looks like another trumped-up reason to get Rhea County in the news. I'd hate to think the county commissioners were that cynical, wouldn't you?