Why we need non-discrimination laws

Some folks consider South Carolina to be backwards.

Naturally I don't agree because it's my home state and I love it.

But sometimes, I swear . . .

Check out this recent incident:

Couple: Hotel Wouldn't Rent to Us Because We're Gay

(Sumter) - A gay couple looking to rent a room say they were told by a local motel that it was against company policy to rent to gay couples.

The hotel is the Affordable Suites of America in Sumter.

For the past two and a half years, Jason Pickel and Darren Black Bear have been a committed couple. They recently exchanged bands, and Tuesday, their search for a temporary place to call home brought thtem to Affordable Suites, a long-term hotel in Sumter, where the couple says they were far from welcome.

"We were inquiring about the price, deposits, extra person fee, and she asked who the was going to be for, and I said for my partner and I,” Pickel said. “She said, 'oh we don't rent to multiple people of the same sex. I said, so you don't rent to gay couples, and she said no we don't rent to gay people at all."

They say they couldn't believe what they were hearing, but they say the woman working the front desk made the message very clear.

"She was like 'no we do not, no we do not...she was very assertive about it," they said.

The website for Affordable Suites of America states the company does not allow children or pets in its suites, but there's no mention of same sex couples. So News19 decided to contact the hotel. We posed as a potential renter, and inquired about two men staying in the same room.

The receptionist who answered the phone told us the following:“Our policy is we don’t’ rent to two people of the same sex if we only have one bed.” “Is that your policy,” we asked. “That’s corporate policy because they only have one sleeping area.” We then asked, “Okay, but they can't share the bed?” "I suppose they could, but most men don’t want to,"


However, when we contacted the owner of the hotel, Carroll Atkisson, he says there had been some confusion. He says any couple can come to the place and they will rent to them, period. Atkisson says the policy was not mean to target homosexuals. He says they were just trying to stop two single people from being in the same bed.

Pickel and Black Bear say they still plan to seek legal action.

Currently, there is no state law preventing a hotel from refusing service to a same-sex couple. However, it is illegal to discriminate on the basis of race, creed, color, national origin, gender, disability, or marital status.

"If they have a policy, it has to be maintained fair and equitably," says Tom Sponseller, the President of the Hospitality Association of South Carolina. "At the beach, for example, because there are different bike weekends at the beach, that policy has to be enforced, and consistent."

There is currently a bill in the State Senate that addresses this issue. The measure, proposed by Charleston Democrat Robert Ford, would expand the Lodging Establishment Act to include prohibition of discrimination because of sexual orientation or gender identity.

Bottom line: We need laws to keep things like this from happening. It's not about some "gay agenda," or an attempt to criminalize Christians.

It's only about fairness.

Paul Cameron, meet Peter LaBarbera
Peter LaBarbera, meet Paul Cameron

Cameron's lie about the supposed gay life span has hit the big time, so to speak, courtesy of our friend Peter LaBarbera and his group, Americans for Truth (in name only):

Canadian Research Suggests only 1.4% of Adults Homosexual

Readers should know that the same homosexual activist movement that now dismisses the Camerons’ research had, for decades, intentionally spread the myth — derived from homosexual sex researcher Alfred Kinsey’s fraudulent data — that “10 percent” of society was “gay.” – Peter LaBarbera

PHILADELPHIA, March 27, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - According to two researchers, the largest random sex survey ever conducted has reported that only 1.4% of adults engaged in homosexual behavior. Analyzing a 2003 Canadian Community survey of 121,300 adults, Drs. Paul and Kirk Cameron told attendees of the Eastern Psychological Association Convention that 2% of 18-44 year olds, 1% of 50 year olds, and only a third of a percent of subjects 60+ considered themselves homosexual. Thus homosexual activity was much more common among younger adults.

This entry solidifies Peter's absolute obsession with all things gay. Except for a brief burst of euphoria after Bush was re-elected in 2004, the anti-gay industry were careful to cite Cameron's studies, but not list his name. This is because they knew of his history.

For some reason, Peter seems to think that Cameron's problems are due to a "Gay Mafia." That could not be farther from the truth. Cameron relies on bad studies and distortions of legitimate work to prove his theories. He has gotten into trouble on many occasions because of this. Jim Burroway at www.boxturtlebulletin.com has written excellent reviews of Cameron's work

My upcoming book has an entire chapter on Cameron and his lies, but a little bit of information from Dr. Gregory Herek would be appropriate here:

On December 2, 1983, the American Psychological Association sent Paul Cameron a letter informing him that he had been dropped from membership. Early in 1984, all members of the American Psychological Association received official written notice that "Paul Cameron (Nebraska) was dropped from membership for a violation of the Preamble to the Ethical Principles of Psychologists" by the APA Board of Directors.

Cameron has posted an elaborate argument about his expulsion from APA on his website, claiming that he resigned from APA before he was dropped from membership. Like most organizations, however, APA does not allow a member to resign when they are being investigated. And even if Cameron's claims were accepted as true, it would be remarkable that the largest professional organization of psychologists in the United States (and other professional associations, as noted below) went to such lengths to disassociate itself from one individual.

At its membership meeting on October 19, 1984, the Nebraska Psychological Association adopted a resolution stating that it "formally disassociates itself from the representations and interpretations of scientific literature offered by Dr. Paul Cameron in his writings and public statements on sexuality."

In 1985, the American Sociological Association (ASA) adopted a resolution which asserted that "Dr. Paul Cameron has consistently misinterpreted and misrepresented sociological research on sexuality, homosexuality, and lesbianism" and noted that "Dr. Paul Cameron has repeatedly campaigned for the abrogation of the civil rights of lesbians and gay men, substantiating his call on the basis of his distorted interpretation of this research."

The resolution formally charged an ASA committee with the task of "critically evaluating and publicly responding to the work of Dr. Paul Cameron."

At its August, 1986 meeting, the ASA officially accepted the committee's report and passed the following resolution:

The American Sociological Association officially and publicly states that Paul Cameron is not a sociologist, and condemns his consistent misrepresentation of sociological research. Information on this action and a copy of the report by the Committee on the Status of Homosexuals in Sociology, "The Paul Cameron Case," is to be published in Footnotes, and be sent to the officers of all regional and state sociological associations and to the Canadian Sociological Association with a request that they alert their members to Cameron's frequent lecture and media appearances.

And here is a little bit of information from my book:

In 2005, the Boston Globe spotlighted Cameron in an article entitled Beliefs Drive Research Agenda of New Think Tanks. According to the article, when the Traditional Values Coalition was asked about Cameron, the organization responded by allegedly removing all references to Cameron from its web page. A spokesperson for the organization, Daniella Lopez, said the research had been placed on the web page by mistake.

Funny. I didn't know that the Traditional Values Coalition was pro-gay.

Peter, if you are going to cite a lie, at least have the savvy to try and cover it up.

Geez, you make me miss Robert Knight.