Utah tourist town divided by 'Everyone Welcome' message [View All]

[Ian David]

Kanab, Utah -- Most businesses in this southern Utah town have a tourism
booster sticker in their front windows saying, "Everyone Welcome Here,"
which sounds pretty tame until you get to the little rainbow-colored people
beneath the text.

Are those little people gay?

Terril Honey, for one, is convinced that they are.

"The rainbow colors are their symbol," said Honey, a member of the Kanab
City Council and owner of Honey's Jubilee, a grocery store where the
stickers are not displayed.

Victor Cooper, who owns the Rocking V Cafe with his wife, Vicky, and led the
drive to introduce the stickers in March, said people like Honey are reading
things into the sticker message that are not there.

The mayor, Kim Lawson, recently floated a compromise to bridge the sticker
gap: another sticker, similar but without the rainbow people. And the Kanab
Chamber of Commerce intends to have new stickers, with the Chamber of
Commerce logo replacing the little people, ready in time for the start of
tourism season next month.

"We don't want to step on the merchants that came together and did the
'everybody welcome' campaign, but on the other hand, we want every business
in town to feel comfortable putting out the same message," said Ted
Hallisey, acting president of the chamber. "If that means a little different
sticker, we're OK with that -- the main message is that everybody's
welcome."

The tempest began in January, when the City Council unanimously passed a
resolution voicing its support for "the natural family," meaning a mother,
father and "a full quiver of children." The nonbinding resolution,
formulated by a conservative advocacy group in Salt Lake City called the
Sutherland Institute, said that the marriage of a "woman to a man and a man
to woman," was "ordained of God," and that protection of that natural family
was the "first responsibility" of local government.

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What do you think of my idea:

Sell anti-gay stickers to people in Kanab, and then use 100% of the proceeds to fund pro-gay causes? Oh, and give the anti-gay mailing list to progressive organizations in the meantime.