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Christopher Curtis, Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network
SUMMARY: After nationwide public outcry, the Tennessee county known for the 1925 Scopes "Monkey Trial" reversed its two-day-old ban homosexuality on Thursday.
After nationwide public outcry, the Tennessee county known for the 1925 Scopes "Monkey Trial" reversed its efforts to ban homosexuality on Thursday.
Two days earlier, Rhea County commissioners had voted 8-0 to request an amendment to Tennessee's criminal code so homosexuals could be charged with crimes against nature.
What followed was a "wildfire" reaction, according to Rhea County Attorney Gary Fritts. "I've never seen nothing like this," he told the Associated Press (AP).
The indignation was palpable in a letter to the editor published Wednesday in a local newspaper, The Chattanoogan.
"What an embarrassment to watch on CNN the twang-talking, tobacco-spitting, Bible-desecrating, hate crime offenders prance their medieval age beliefs, leaving the rest of the world confirmed on previous assumptions of what an often backwoods, cow-tipping, discriminating state Tennessee is said to be," wrote Lucy Bach of Chattanooga.
Rhea County commissioners met again on Thursday night, taking three minutes to overturn their controversial vote.
Fritts told reporters the commissioners were advised they could not ban homosexuals after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Texas' sodomy laws in 2003.
But Fritts described what happened as a misunderstanding. "[The county commissioners] wanted to send a message to our representative and senator that Rhea County supports the ban on same-sex marriage," he told the AP.
The county's conservative reputation is rooted as far back as 1925, when a court in Rhea County famously convicted high school teacher John T. Scopes for teaching evolution. A higher court reversed the verdict on a technicality, and the trial became the subject of the play and movie "Inherit the Wind."
But that conservatism may one day be just a part of history, according to Matt Nevels, president of the Chattanooga chapter of Parents, Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG).
"What the county commissioners did has opened up a conversation and has gotten people to talk about it. Some gay people in Rhea County came out. And because of that, there's a possibility we maybe able to open a PFLAG chapter in Rhea County and change some minds," Nevels told the Gay.com/PlanetOut.com Network.
"You get lemons," Nevels added, "and you make lemonade."
"Always forgive your enemies...nothing annoys them quite so much." Oscar Wilde
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