Monday, January 30, 2012
News Stacey Campfield Refused Service at Knoxville Eatery
Posted by Bianca Phillips on Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 1:52 PM
State Senator Stacey Campfield got a taste of his own medicine on Sunday night when the "Don't Say Gay" bill author was denied service at Bistro at the Bijou in his hometown of Knoxville.
Bistro at the Bijou owner Martha Boggs posted on Facebook about her decision to turn the senator away: “I hope that Stacey Campfield now knows what it feels like to be discriminated against.”
Boggs' decision to turn Campfield away stemmed from some remarks he made during an interview on The Michelangelo Signorile Show on Sirius/XM's OutQ gay talk radio station. In the interview last Thursday, which was supposed to be about his state bill that would ban discussion of homosexuality in grades K through 8, Campfield said the following:
"Most people realize that AIDS came from the homosexual community — it was one guy screwing a monkey, if I recall correctly, and then having sex with men. It was an airline pilot, if I recall.""My understanding is that it is virtually — not completely, but virtually — impossible to contract AIDS through heterosexual sex...very rarely [transmitted]."
"What's the average lifespan of a homosexual? It's very short. Google it yourself."
Boggs told the Knoxville News-Sentinel that denying Campfield service was her way of standing up to a bully: "He's gone from being stupid to dangerous."
Click here to listen to Campfield's entire interview on OutQ.
And click here to hear another juicy interview (and read Truth Wins Out blogger Evan Hurst's funny commentary) by David Pakman with Stacey Campfield. Among the many ditties in that interview, Campfield says not having sex with Africans helps one's chances at avoiding AIDS.
Comments (31)
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I blame Senator Campfield's parents. If they hadn't given him a girl's name, he wouldn't have spent his entire life trying to prove what a manly man he is.
If only they had named him Dash. Or Rock. Or Wolf. Or Hunter. Or Mace. Or Dirk. Or Cord.
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I took down my prior comment on this. I decided I didn't have enough information to be judgmental. Carry on.
Hell, I would have turned him away even if he hadn't displayed his stupidity.....he's a politician. People pay good money for their meal, they don't want to be nauseated by clientele like him.
Hmmm...in perusing the Civil Rights Code I don't seem to see any prohibition on refusing service due to rank stupidity and ignorance, although----AHA, here it is! Yes, YES! Under the Americans With Disabilities Act it clearly states, and I quote, "Those Americans differently-abled due to having their heads shoved completely inside their anuses shall be entitled to the same service in public facilities as those Americans who don't have their heads up their asses."
It appears Stacey has been wronged.
And here's his side of the encounter:
http://lastcar.blogspot.com/
So, do homosexuals live longer than heterosexuals? Is HIV more likely to be spread via homosexual or heterosexual contact in the U.S.? What is the story behind the origin of aids? Were monkeys or chimps involved in any way?
"So, do homosexuals live longer than heterosexuals? Is HIV more likely to be spread via homosexual or heterosexual contact in the U.S.? What is the story behind the origin of aids? Were monkeys or chimps involved in any way"
Is there a point in there somewhere?
Seriously uhoh, go back to discussing schools. Your remarks there are intelligible, don't ruin your rep trying to defend the indefensible.
so a "single" 42 year old ginger with a girl's name "hates fags"
lol?
Packrat, I may have a point here, I don't know. This guy is being held up to ridicule for what he said, but his statements aren't refuted in the article.
mad_merc, thanks for your concern about my rep. I realize conservatives get trashed mercilessly around here, so thank goodness I'm not a conservative. I'm just interested in the truth. Always.
HIV/AIDS is no respecter of heterosexuality. Globally it remains a predominantly heterosexual problem, and in the US is also heavily biased on racial lines.
Latest statistics of the global HIV/AIDS epidemic published by UNAIDS in Nov 2010 show 68% of HIV to be in sub-Saharan Africa, the region carrying the greatest burden of the epidemic. Of 33.3 million living with HIV, 15.9 million are women and 2.5 million are children. In India, 85% of HIV/AIDS transmission is heterosexual, with 2.5 million currently infected, so globally it’s not exactly a ‘gay disease’. A person's heterosexuality does not make them immune from HIV/AIDS and I think it is grossly irresponsible for Stacey Campfield to let kids believe that they won't get the disease so long as they're heterosexual.
Moreover, to date, over 230,000 African Americans have died of AIDS - nearly 40% of total deaths - and of the more than 1 million people living with HIV in the United States of America today, around half are black. And yet, as a racial group, African Americans represent just 13% of the US population. (http://www.avert.org/hiv-african-americans…)
It makes no more sense for Senator Campfield to state that a person should not be homosexual in order to avoid succumbing to HIV/AIDS, than it does to suggest that a person should not be black, so as to avoid succumbing to HIV/AIDS. A monogamous gay couple have no more chance of transmitting HIV than do a heterosexual couple. Monogamy, safer sexual practice and not sharing needles remain the best ways to minimise HIV infection.
Enough with all of the people who are fake offended by this and claiming that this is some kind of double-standard by "liberals," even throwing around the Civil Rights Acts (that many conservatives actually want to overturn) and other nonsense. Please stop with the liberals versus conservatives rah-rah-rah. It's over. That dichotomy failed a long time ago, some of you still haven't figured it out.
This is the issue, and don't let it be defined for you any other way, by silly news media outlets or corrupt political groups looking for your fan support: Because of the democratic nature of our system of government, freedom and equality have been systematically denied, WHEN they have been, only to MINORITIES in our nation. Minorities and suspect classes. If our laws and social customs aren't protecting the rights of EVERYONE to exist peacefully and without harassment by government and others in society, they should be re-examined, always.
Fact: Stacey Campfield is the legislator behind hate-fueled, bigoted legislation (that may be unconstitutional) targeted towards a minority class of citizens who are not free to exist peacefully and without harassment. Period. Campfield is repeating a mistake made over and over in American history, by trying to use the majority-rule nature of a democratic government to strip them of a peaceful existence (legally sanctioning bullying? seriously?). So, when he goes to a restaurant owned by people who are disaffected by his abuse of power, justice dictates that they should at least let him know how his constituents feel about the way he represents them. At least. And any law that would MANDATE that they serve him would be some kind of cruel joke.
Ok, I'll bite.
I went to his blog (as provided by Clyde). The majority of his "sources" are from Christian/anti-gay websites putting forth propaganda as evidence. The one scientific study he sites is one often quoted by anti-gay bullies and comes from 1991. It's completely outdated and most of the results have been refuted or changed drastically over the past 20 years. He then proceeds to use CDC data and present in such a way as to validate his prejudices (which it does not). As far as the monkey bit, there simply aren't any words to address this blatant lie.
Campfield has obviously graduated top of his class from the Herman Goering School of Misinformation.
His statements have been refuted uhoh. repeatedly. If you're interested in the truth there's this: Stacie has a record of hatred and bigotry, he also has a record of not being respected in the state legislature by even those in his own party. Privately (and sometimes not so privately) they look at him as Knoxville's version of Ophelia Ford. Merc is right, you've had a respectable and generally thoughtful run of posts in regards to some other issues here. I've enjoyed that even if I haven't agreed. On this, there isn't any doubt, Campfield is a bigot trying to use specious statistics about a terrible disease as cover for his own hatred of gays.
Hate-filled lunatic gets some real "social justice"! Bravo!
To expand upon a great sub-title from a not-so-great movie about truly great Americans, "Courage has no color, gender or sexual orientation!"
Mr Baker is to be credited for his journalistic integrity for not jumping to conclusions, but as my grandfather once said."If you can form a minyan in a boxcar, it's not a good thing"
Normally I would find the right wing rants of unmarried middle-aged Republicans just another example in a long list of closeted conservatives.
But this monkey thing, Whoa Nelly. If I were short hirsute man strolling down Gay Street in Knoxville, I'd worry about Stacy polling the electorate after the Bijou closes.
Ah c'mon like I'm the only one thinking it.
Why do so many anti-gay rights leaders keep getting caught being gay?
Homophobia really is "so gay". Anti-gay leaders like George Rekers, Ted Haggard, Eddie Long, Roy Ashburn are constantly being exposed as closet homosexuals, moreover laboratory tests reported at Department of Psychology, University of Georgia, Athens 30602-3013, USA. proved self-identifying homophobes were turned on by gay porn whereas non-homophobes were not: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8772014
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7ukdrPSE7g…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fUU0evTWQI…
Trouble is, it doesn't look very good for our equality marches if it turns out all our problems have been caused by closeted, self-hating gays!
Packrat, no one answered my questions. Not to worry, though, because I already knew the answers. What I see here is pretty common - a knee-jerk reaction to the person, not especially what he said. (Check out the comments about Mark Norris and Curry Todd in today's CA.)
BTW, I never heard of this guy before today, but I'm sure he is talking about the incidence of infection in Tennessee or the U.S., not in Africa.
As far as his legislation goes, I am in favor of gays adopting kids, so clearly I wouldn't care if they were taught about homosexuality in school, assuming, of course, it was done in a tasteful manner.
Finally, I don't think discrimination is a good way to fight discrimination.
@uhoh - it is beyond disupute that in the West, the demographic most afflicted by HIV/AIDS is the gay male. It does us no credit to skirt round this issue, but prevention will not be achieved by eliminating homosexuality, only safer sex, monogamy or abstinence by both homosexuals and heterosexuals can achieve that. This statistic is contemptuously adduced to condemn homosexuality per se, but it behoves us to look into the problem a little more deeply than the outright condemnation of homosexuality opted for by the likes of the anally-obsessed Campfield.
For starters, how about the fact that homosexual women are at significanly lower risk than heterosexual women? Using Campfield's rationale, we should therefore be condemning male+female sex and promoting lesbianism - that is if our underlying motiviaiton were really public health, and not plain old homophobia.
And what about the fact that African Americans gay or straight, are 3x more often infected than whites? Using Campfield's rationale, we should be climbing into blacks, but no, it's us gays he wants, and AIDS has handed him the vainglorious righteousness he always dreamed of.
Let us now look backaways at the first emergence of the disease, long extant in Africa. The 1980's gay sex clubs were already at high risk of SDI transmission, but with HIV/AIDS they were a breeding ground for catastrophe. Homosexuals who fell ill were treated with even more contempt than before, when in reality they had been infected without realising what was happening and this despite the fact tha heterosexual men were just as promiscuous, very much a male trait if you ask me. Had it not been for the acitivism in our community to protect public health, then the disease would have been ignored until its numerical representaiton would have been just the same as in Africa, almost entirely heterosexual, or in India 85% heterosexual.
Now to the bottom line. Same sex marriage. Why is the homosexual HIV/AIDS infection rate being cited in this context? Assuming they were HIV free to begin with, can Senator Campfield, or your goodself please explain how any monogamous couple, gay or straight can possibly transmit any disease, let alone HIV/AIDS within their committed relationship?
If Senator Campfield were really sincere in his desire to limit HIV/AIDS infection, he would want EVERY gay couple to be monogamously married. The fact is, he doesn't - he manifestly hates us, and I have my own theories why as you'll find out by checking my other posts to this page. I know it's a tired old adage, but methinks he doth protest too much.
Will somebody please address uhoh's concern about the monkeys. My god they're ugly, without those big brown bovine eyes. And I don't need to tell you where lanolin comes from. But monkeys? That's sick.
HIV is the result of evolution - something I'm sure Stacey Campfield also denies...
Indeed, uhoh, I didn't address your "questions," specious as they were. Forgive me. To answer the monkey one: monkeys come flying out of Stacie's butt.
Packrat, I'm going get with Greg today about how to best illustrate monkeys coming out while Stacy's head goes in--it could be tricky.
I'm not sure that even Greg, with all his talent, can make that monkey fly.
Derek, I would imagine the difference in the infection rate of African-Americans and others has to do with IV drug use and needle sharing.
Sorry to say that I don't think gay marriage would be a solution for the spread of HIV. People don't need a marriage license to remain monogamous. I can't really think of a reason gays shouldn't be allowed to get married, so I'm not against it, but I wouldn't expect it to become legal in Tennessee any time in the near future.
Without going into detail, the reason why heterosexual women are more susceptible to HIV infection than gay women is obvious.
I'm not your enemy. The only reason I jumped in here was because the 3 things Campfield was quoted as saying are some pretty commonly held beliefs, and there is some truth to them. When I told my wife what I was posting about last night, she jumped in and told me about the pilot being the guilty party, without any prompting from myself. I thought that was nonsense when I read it here, but I felt the part about chimps was generally believed to be true. Now I have to look it up and see which pilot is getting blamed for the AIDS epidemic.
I'm sure there were many who felt that AIDS was the "final solution" for homosexuals, and the treatment of gays during the initial stages of the outbreak was like something out of a horror movie. Hopefully people are more enlightened today and the Pat Buchanans of this world understand it is not God visiting his wrath on people all over the planet, it is just a disease of the immune system.
@uhoh - Please read the links I provided (http://www.avert.org/hiv-african-americans…). Injecting drug use for African Americans and in 2008 accounted for just 18 percent of all AIDS diagnoses among African Americans. 50% is due to male > male sexual contact, the rest is heterosexual.
The fact remains that blacks account for half of all HIV/AIDS diagnoses, despite being only 14% of the population, so my point still stands.
Being homosexual myself, I clearly know a lot more homosexuals personally than either you or Senator Campfield, and there are hundreds of millions of us the world over. In my 59 years of life, have never once known any homosexual with a mobile phone nor any other object stuck in his anus, or who is anally incontinent as so picturesquely claimed by Senator Campridle, and my friends go well into their 80s. These cartoon-like images put up by Campfield betray his Freudian obsession with the mechanics of gay sex.
The fact is, there is no sexual practice engaged in by homosexuals that is not at some point also engaged in by heterosexuals. For example, kissing, this is not the exclusive preserve of homosexuals, nor is oral sex. Even anal sex is practised by many straight couples. It is perfectly safe if practised with knowledge, and it should also be borne in mind that it is not necessarily practised by 100% of homosexuals. The things that bind homosexuals together are the same emotional, psychological and sexual attractions that bind you with the person you love.
If 5% is taken as an average just for openly gay (4% declared as openly gay in the US Census 2004 and 2008 exit polls, and 6% in the UK) and applied to global population of 7 billion, then you have a minimum 350 million gays. This excludes those in the closet, probably the majority of gays are still there for reasons of safety and fear of disenfranchisement, so it could even run as high as 700-800 million.
In short, there are enough of us openly gay in the world to form our own superpower. We outnumber the military in every country, yet except as in the Stonewall Riots when provoked beyond endurance, we have chosen to fight for our rights peaceably. I hope we shall always do so. We are as much a part of your everyday lives as you are of ours.
Ill-informed nincompoops the likes of Campfield serve only to slow down the process of mutual reconciliation to a snail's pace.
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