Gay-iendly towns red stat draw LGBTQ tourists: 'We're here to be normal for a weekend'

eureka springs gay community

Henri's Jt One More: A iendly male gay bar wh excellent drks. - See 32 traveler reviews, ndid photos, and great als for Eureka Sprgs, AR, at Tripadvisor.

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GAY EUREKA SPRGS TRAVEL GUI

Eureka Sprgs is the Gay Capal of the Ozarks * eureka springs gay community *

Gray had done all, or close to , his 60-pl years – the ary veteran has been a hairdrser, puter programmer, award-wng AIDS advote, and drag queen (he performed as Patti Le Plae Safe, a Miss Gay Ameri wner). Now he mans the ont sk at a motel-turned-LGBTQ-iendly rort, the Wanroo Lodge, owned by a gay uple who recently settled Eureka themselv. A nearly 70-foot-tall J statue gaz over a place once lled the “gayt small town Ameri.

Among the mm’s artifacts are vtage photos of a gay uple holdg hands and a woman drsed men’s cloth, he said. Out gay men and women started nng lucrative bs – Gary Eagen’s Sprg Street Pottery stud still stands.

Soon, straight and gay upl were drsg drag as sultry saloon performers or macho wboys, pos that were “happily enuraged and monplace, ” Danos said. What better place, they thought, to ri out the crazit days of their liv than a gay small town?

A GAY GET-AWAY EUREKA SPRGS

Serly Gayly rears; ’s as if ’s always Pri Eureka Sprgs! Every day the bs all over town fly their rabow flags, gay upl n stroll down the streets of Eureka holdg hands and not be judged, discrimated agast or, for that matter, thrown out of town. * eureka springs gay community *

But ’s a divi that s rints have mostly been able to bridge wh kdns, said David Avanzo, who speaks fondly of a Wanroo regular – “your typil Ozark man” – who once told Avanzo that he’d never met gay men before patronizg the lodge.

The days, Taylor said he don’t even “thk about beg gay bee seems so normal here as a uple to go out among straight upl. A iend and former mayor was at the urthoe, too, and he married the uple on the spot – they beme the first male gay uple to legally marry Arkansas.

Text 'GAYTRAVEL' to 1-800-GAY-TRAVEL (1-800-429-8728).

EXPLORE GAY ROOMS & RENTALS EUREKA SPRGS

— Travel Guis wh a Gay Perspective. Makg Gay Headl and Gay History! Gay Eureka Sprgs.

EUREKA SPRGS: SO GAY, THEY HAVE THREE PRI CELEBRATNS

It uldn’t have happened to a nicer—or gayer—place. Te, the Arkansas Supreme Court put the procs on hold (temporarily), but history had been ma this ty gaytn mec and the news went viral. To anyone who has vised the Gay Capal of the Ozarks, me as no surprise.

This Victorian-era village on the Natnal Register of Historic Plac has been makg major gay history and headl for s. Wh a disproportnately large LGBT populatn and dozens of gay-owned B&Bs, rtrants, bars, art galleri and trendy shops, this scenic ltle rort town ntled the Ozark Mountas is also the first and only cy the state wh a Domtic Partnership Registry (open to non-rints) and the first and only cy the state to officially endorse marriage equaly. “Our secret’s out, ” says the cy’s Gay Bs Guild (another first the state), “not even our streets are straight!

For gay travelers, has long been the premier travel statn the Mid-South regn of the untry, drawg thoands of gay visors each year om across the U.

GAY-IENDLY TOWNS RED STAT DRAW LGBTQ TOURISTS: 'WE'RE HERE TO BE NORMAL FOR A WEEKEND'

S., particularly those who have been-there-done-that better known astal gay rorts. Intertgly, there are no exclively gay bars. All the waterg hol are gay/straight iendly.

EUREKA SPRGS: SO GAY, THEY HAVE THREE PRI CELEBRATNS

“The gayt small town Ameri you’ve never heard of. "Among North Ameri's Most Affordable Gay Vatn Towns. ” — Gay Travel.

"Eureka Sprgs Among Top Five Bt Small Gay Ci. "On par wh Key Wt, Provcetown and Palm Sprgs as a gay vatn paradise. The Gay Scene Eureka Sprgs.

Wh more bars per pa than anywhere else Arkansas, fdg gay nightlife is easy Eureka Sprgs. View the Gay Scene Eureka Sprgs. Straight people, gay people, parents wh kids.

A GAY GET-AWAY EUREKA SPRGS

The outskirts offer no ht that this is one of the most gay-iendly small towns Ameri. Formally known as the “Intrastate Commerce Improvement Act”, purportedly exists to help bs by makg non-discrimatn l uniform across the Arkansas do not have a law banng anti-gay discrimatn, so the effect of SB202 is to ero the rights of gay people plac such as Eureka that want to protect state’s LGBT muny absorbed another blow on Thursday. Amid a natnal furore that prompted the origal proposals to be revised after crics said they would legally protect anti-gay discrimatn, the Republin-domated Arkansas legislature approved a “relig eedom” bill that do not give specific protectns agast unfair treatment based on sexual passed the Arkansas legislature last week: Senate Bill 939, the “Ten Commandments Monument Display Act”, which allows a privately fund display of the edicts to be erected on the state pol’s grounds.

THE GAYZARKS

But as Eureka Sprgs beme an creasgly popular gay statn, crowds fell to the extent that 2012, the Passn Play closed due to lack of was rurrected by Randall Christy, an Oklahoma-based Baptist pastor and the founr of a Christian rad work. “Randall Christy told me the attendance at the Great Passn Play is what is bee church groups have cid that they n boytt homosexualy by not g to Eureka Sprgs, ” said pastor Phil Wilson of First Christian Church, which is on Passn Play Road, a short drive om the theatre.

“There have been many thgs that have happened Eureka Sprgs that have ma be perceived as an emently sirable homosexual statn, ” he said.

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“We have 6, 000 years of Juo-Christian history that has affirmed that homosexualy is morally wrong and we live a society that says ’s morally right. ”‘A handful of homosexual activists’They’re Comg to Your Town: ‘Learn how to fight a well-anised gay agenda.

’Wilson was one of the stars of They’re Comg To Your Town, a teachg DVD produced by a fundamentalist Christian group, the Amerin Fay Associatn, which offers “a look at how a handful of homosexual activists filtrated the Eureka Sprgs, Arkansas, ernment and changed the very moral fibre of the cy” 2007, he mobilised support for a failed attempt to fight an ordance givg the cy the right to create a domtic partnership registry that allows non-heterosexual upl to make their relatnships a matter of public rerd. Though the ordance seems likely to be upheld given Eureka’s large proportn of gay rints, last December an equal rights ordance was repealed nearby Clark, 35, is -owner of the Green Gourd, a gift shop the town centre which has a large rabow flag flutterg outsi. He moved to Eureka wh his partner om Jonboro, near Memphis, search of more gay-iendly surroundgs.

“They’ve kicked the [gay-sympathisg] Methodists out of their para. ”Shop owner Josh Clark on gay-iendly downtown Eureka the beer garn of the Eureka Live Unrground bar, Carly Jam, who said she worked as a “barista-ctneer”, exprsed ncern that perceptns of Arkansas as gay-hostile the wake of the relig eedom bill would harm Eureka’s reputatn.

*BEAR-MAGAZINE.COM* EUREKA SPRINGS GAY COMMUNITY

Gay-iendly towns red stat draw LGBTQ tourists: 'We're here to be normal for a weekend' .

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