Conservatives Insist South Carolina Is Not Gay ... Not Even a Little Bi-Curious

Posted by Isaac Fitzgerald, AlterNet at 5:28 AM on July 17, 2008.

Amro Worldwide has managed to upset a few folks in the Palmetto State with an advertising campaign they commissioned in London. A South Carolina state employee has resigned over the fiasco, and many state officials have publicly denounced the ads. MSNBC reports:

The campaign, which plastered the London subway with posters advertising the charms of South Carolina and five major U.S. cities to gay European tourists, landed with a resounding thud in South Carolina, where the issue of gay rights has long been a political flashpoint.

The advertisements were timed for London's Gay Pride Week, which ended Saturday. The posters touted the attractions of the state to gay tourists, including its "gay beaches" and its Civil War-era plantations.

Similar ads were posted for Atlanta, Boston, Las Vegas, New Orleans and Washington, D.C., none of which reported any negative backlash. But in South Carolina, reaction to the posters -- dubbed "the gayest ever mainstream media advertising campaign in London" by Out Now, the Australian advertising firm that designed the promotion -- was swift.

After The Palmetto Scoop, a South Carolina political blog, uncovered the promotion last week, Republican state Sen. David Thomas of Greenville protested the campaign and called for an audit of the advertising budget overseen by the state Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism.

"South Carolinians will be irate when they learn their hard earned tax dollars are being spent to advertise our state as 'so gay,'" Thomas said in a statement.

Sounds like a classic case of denial to me.

The article goes on to quote Ventphis Stafford of Charleston saying "We're so gay? Nah. Wrong state. Go to California." Given the growing gay-tourism industry, many in California hope that people will take Ventphis' advice.

Todd Lappin at Laughing Squid is concerned about South Carolina dipping into his city's lucrative gay tourism revenues:

Sound absurd? Consider: San Francisco may have The Castro, Pride, and legalized marriage, but South Carolina has Hilton Head, antebellum mansions, and burly Civil War reenactors dashing though the woods in cute uniforms. And which of those do *you* think Judy Garland would prefer?

Indeed.

Tagged as: msnbc, south carolina, gay tourism, david thomas, out now, amro worldwide