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On the anniversary of a controversial gay pride display, a group re-creates the presentation that was taken down.

By MEGAN VOELLER
Published June 23, 2006

It started a year ago in a public library.

An employee put up a gay pride display that drew the attention of the Hillsborough County Commission, which then decided that county government would never acknowledge, promote or participate in a gay pride event again.

The display came down.

So it seemed only fitting one year later to protest the commission's actions by gathering at a public library.

Last week, members of the gay rights group Brandon Pride re-created the display that was taken down last June. This time, they displayed it in a private meeting room at the Bloomingdale Regional Public Library.

They were allowed to put up the display because any member of the public can use the meeting room, said R. Zeke Fread, a spokesperson for Brandon Pride, the group that organized the event.

On Thursday, more than 30 supporters gathered in the room to hear readings from several books in the display. Two University of South Florida library science professors joined School Board candidate Bart Birdsall and six other gay rights advocates taking turns at the podium.

Several speakers said the commission's decision jeopardized intellectual freedom as well as gay rights. They urged those in the crowd to express their displeasure in the voting booth.

"You wouldn't think a library board would be a political issue," said USF professor Kathleen de la Pena McCook.

This is what happens when "you elect officials who say they will be family friendly or whatever euphemism they're using now," she said.

McCook contrasted the lack of gay pride events at Hillsborough libraries with events elsewhere in the state, including an Orlando library exhibit and a film festival at a New Port Richey library.

Birdsall, the School Board candidate and a librarian at Greco Middle School in Temple Terrace, said the controversy remained primarily an issue of censorship.

"When it blew up into a huge gay pride issue, I was torn," said Birdsall, who's running to represent a district that includes South Tampa. "It's important that people can celebrate gay pride, but it's more important that people be able to go into the library and find this information."

Birdsall read a short story called Am I Blue? by Bruce Coville, describing the humiliation suffered by a teenage boy when a schoolyard bully calls him gay.

In the story, the boy meets a fairy godfather, who grants his wish to make gay people temporarily visible by turning them blue.

As the boy watches in surprise, about a third of the people around him turn various shades of blue, in proportion to their attraction to members of the same sex.

As for the bully, he nearly blends into the summer sky.

Birdsall said the story reminded him of his own adolescence.

"You always think you're the only one who feels a certain way," he said. "My first experience reading a book about a male falling in love with another male struck a chord in my soul."

USF professor Linda Alexander, who taught the library employee and USF graduate student who put up the original display at West Gate library, cautioned that gay teens are more likely to commit suicide than their straight peers, in part because of feelings of isolation.

The Rev. Carolyn Mobley of the United Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches led the group in prayer. Both she and activist Kevin Beckner spoke about challenges gay Christians face.

Both gay and straight people assume that being gay and being Christian are mutually exclusive, Beckner said.

He read aloud from a published letter written to the Rev. Jerry Falwell by the Rev. Mel White, a ghostwriter of Falwell's autobiography, Strength for the Journey.

In the letter, White reveals his sexual orientation to Falwell after years of friendship. He chides the evangelist for hurting gay Christians by condemning homosexuality.

[Last modified June 22, 2006, 12:34:17]