Posted on 01/02/2005 11:43:40 PM PST by JohnHuang2
Monday, January 3, 2005
Tempers flaming hot
over 'Gay Ski Week'
Homosexual activists blast man who posted warning to families
By Ron Strom
A promoter of tourism in a Colorado ski town has stirred up a controversy among local residents after posting a warning to potential visiting families about the city's Gay Ski Week.
Al Heirich runs an online guide to Telluride, Colo., offering information about the town, its skiing, lodging and restaurants. Telluride is a world-class ski resort with a population of about 3,000.
Heirich says promoters of the homosexual event, including the Telluride Ski Resort, have demanded he remove his warning to families on his website, claiming it is discriminatory.
The resort also asked him to remove links to its site from Heirich's site.
"Telluride Ski Resort does not discriminate against any skiers or visitors to Telluride," the resort's marketing vice president, Pete Woods, told Heirich in an e-mail. "Obviously your website does not reflect that same message.
"Please remove any and all links to the www.tellurideskiresort.com website on the skimall.net site immediately."
The controversy began with last year's Gay Ski Week, when Heirich says he tried to warn potential tourists individually. This year he thought a general statement on his site would be more efficient.
Says the statement: "Although this week should be fun for those not offended by alternative lifestyles, with scheduled events including: The Pleasure Hunt, The Blue Ball Dance, Drag Races and more, we are strongly suggesting that families concerned with exposing their children to the homosexual lifestyle and homosexual behavior schedule their vacations another time.
"Events are planned throughout the week in both towns celebrating and promoting the homosexual lifestyle.
"Due to the intense controversy this year in regards to this week, the public display of homosexual pride and behavior will most likely be greater than last year. If this offends you, this is not the time to visit Telluride."
The statement also warns parents about the week's "sexually oriented" Aids Benefit Fashion Show with a link to photos of last year's event. While it urges families not to attend the fashion show, readers are encouraged to donate to the cause.
Heirich says the Gay Ski Week warning is no different than a warning he has posted about college ski weeks, during which public drunkenness and lewdness normally increase.
The statement on Gay Ski Week, which is scheduled for Feb. 26 to March 6, includes the following:
"Note: We have updated this notice more than 10 times to attempt not to offend a small portion of our visitors. Please do not request any further changes. Unfortunately, we cannot insure that every person who may be offended one way or the other is happy."
Heirich entered the fray about Gay Ski Week last year when his letter to the editor was published in the Daily Planet. His main beef was about the community labeling people by having special weeks for certain kinds of visitors.
"I hear and read the liberal rant of how those opposed to a Gay Ski Week are homophobic, intolerant and hateful," he wrote. "I'm against Gay Ski Week and not because of any moral or religious belief. I'm against it because we are now so desperate for tourists that we feel the need to label groups or individuals – a weird desire to accept them while we make them stand out. Frankly, I don't care if it's gays, blacks, Jews, hippies or angry white men. In the past, we have been able to welcome them all without the need for labels or special weeks."
Heirich claims the warning is not discriminatory and says he must take the beliefs of his clientele into consideration when telling them about Telluride.
"We do have a conservative, affluent, active demographic," he said of his customers. "The people like the family-friendly feel of the site."
Continued Heirich: "My customers aren't homophobes; they're parents with little kids. … But when you're advertising Gay Ski Week it really does have an exclusive sound to it."
On Dec. 1, the paper published a letter from resident Susan Knight opposing the homosexually oriented week. Responses from outraged community members have followed ever since, with one letter writer saying Knight's missive was "unspeakably offensive," a phrase she used in her letter.
Another writer hammered Knight, saying Telluride is "an oasis for free thinking in an often-judgmental America."
Wrote another, addressing Knight: "Your intolerance and bigotry is disgusting. Furthermore, your belief that your hate-infused worldview even vaguely represents the opinion of this community proves how clueless you are to what Telluride really is."
Heirich says it was the many letters hammering Knight that generated questions from people who read them on the Internet and then expressed concern to him.
"A lot of them wanted to know, 'what's all this controversy?'" he told WND.
Heirich says he's "the only vocal conservative in Telluride" and has been told he must be more "respectful" toward those who listen to a radio show he co-hosts on an all-volunteer community radio station.
"I've been called a racists and a homophobe in the paper, but that's the price you pay for speaking out," he told WND.
Said Heirich of the pressure put on him regarding his site: "It's really a bullying tactic."
If Disneyland were only so considerate. While I'm at it, the Hollywood Bowl could learn a thing or two.
You haven't lived until you find yourself in the midst of groups of adult men groping each other in public.
My wife and I have had this happen at Disneyland and the Hollywood Bowl.
Not content to just enjoy each other's company, these guys are grabing crotches, french kissing and just about anything else they can do to gross the non-homosexual people out.
It's so strange to see 30-40 year old men act like hormonal 15-17 year olds, only with the same sex.
I think it's perectly OK.....just as long as they also have a "White Christian Monogamous Heterosexual Well-Armed Conservative Patriot Week" immediately afterward.
"I hear and read the liberal rant of how those opposed to a Gay Ski Week are homophobic, intolerant and hateful," he wrote. "I'm against Gay Ski Week and not because of any moral or religious belief. I'm against it because we are now so desperate for tourists that we feel the need to label groups or individuals – a weird desire to accept them while we make them stand out. Frankly, I don't care if it's gays, blacks, Jews, hippies or angry white men. In the past, we have been able to welcome them all without the need for labels or special weeks."
Hell Yes. I like him. And not in that way! =P
Not to mention the Philadelphia Phillies.
Why not at the same time for a bit of fun..?
Telluride is not exactly a cheap place to visit. Imagine how a person might feel when he's booked a tiny hotel room for himself and his family, spend most of the day getting there thanks to endless lines at the airport, and when he arrives at the resort the lobby is filled with middle-aged men french-kissing each other, and the smell of amyl nitrate in the air.
What choice do you have other than to turn right around and go home, losing your room deposit, wasting your airfare and spoiling your entire vacation?
This man is providing a wonderful public service, alerting people as he is. He will most likely be run out of town, at the least, for his efforts.
The fella on the left looks like somebody just flipped the remote switch on his gerbil vibrator.
Don't touch a gay guy's ski pole. Don't know where that thing has been!
Let me know which week that is and I'm there!
These are the same people who want to adopt children.
Personally, I don't think homosexuals should be allowed to rear children.
Since when has it become "discriminatory" to tell the truth?
Oh that's right, whenever the homosexual deviants are put in a bad light.
Ewwwww! I'm sure glad I don't have to bend over backwards for a bunch of perverts! Sucks to be them! (oops)
AAAUUUUGGGGHHHH!!!!!! I CLICKED ON THE LINK!!! PLPLPLPLLLLLLLAT!
How am I supposed to go to sleep now!?!?!?!
YUCK!
ROFCUFL
Don't eat the brown snow.
You forgot the /sarcasm tag.,
lol
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