STATE UNFAIR | Dondi Morse, left, and Latisha Pennington say they attended the State Fair of Texas with their seven-year-old daughter and were verbally attacked by one vendor.
Haltom City lesbians say vendor’s verbal gay-bashing left their 7-year-old daughter in tears
UPDATE: Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship in America has sent an apology to the couple and the man in the booth who verbally attacked the couple has been removed from the fair.
DAVID TAFFET | Staff Writer
taffet@dallasvoice.com
When Latisha Pennington and Dondi Morse of Haltom City took their 7-year-old daughter to the Texas State Fair last weekend, they just wanted to have a fun day seeing the animals and trying out the fair’s famed array of fried treats.
But the women said this week their plans were ruined when one vendor verbally gay-bashed them in front of their daughter, leaving the little girl in tears and forcing the family to cut their outing short.
Although Pennington acknowledges that it isn’t hard to look at her and know she is a lesbian, that same isn’t true for her partner. And the two of them weren’t doing anything that day to attract attention; they weren’t holding hands and they certainly weren’t kissing or engaging in any kind of public displays of affection.
“We were just there to have fun with our daughter,” Pennington said, adding that PDAs “just aren’t our style.”
But that wasn’t enough to ward off some unwanted attention from the men at the booth for the Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship in America.
Pennington said she and Morse and their daughter had just left one of the animal buildings when she heard a man call out to them. He said, she recalled,
“Hey, come here, come here. I got something for you. Got a couple of questions.”
The women noticed that the man was one of several at the booth that were giving away T-shirts and visors so they decided to go over and see what was being offered.
Each man in the booth was holding a sign that said, “What would you take for $1 million?” And the man who called them over did indeed have a question for them: “Would you take $1 million for your right eye?”
Pennington said she closed one eye, and the man asked her what she was doing. She told him she was just checking to see how well she could see out of one eye before she answered.
She said the man laughed at her answer. But his next question was no laughing matter: “Would you take $1 million for your soul?”
That’s when Morse jumped into the conversation, telling the man that if he was trying to engage them in a religious debate, they weren’t interested in going further.
Pennington said the man assured them he wasn’t interested in a religious debate either. But his next statement proved otherwise. That’s when the encounter began to turn ugly.
Pennington said he asked them, “What do you think will happen to your soul when you die?” Then he answered his own question with, “I know what’s going to happen to your soul. You’re going to hell for being a homosexual.”
The man then began “slinging biblical quotes at us” that supposedly condemn homosexuality. And as his harangue continued, their daughter began to cry, prompting the mothers to get her away from the booth and the man there as quickly as possible.
“We were at the booth no more than two minutes,” Pennington said, adding that the first thing to go through her mind was, “Oh, wow! Nothing like this has ever happened to us before.”
Besides just ruining their family outing with his remarks, Pennington said she questions what sort of family values the man who accosted them thought he was teaching her.
They tried to calm their daughter, Pennington said, but she continued to cry, asking Morse, “Mommy, why are you going to hell?”
The couple soon decided that they needed to leave the fair as quickly as possible to get their daughter to a safer environment where she could begin to calm down.
Pennington said they contacted state fair officials immediately to complain. On Wednesday, she said, they had heard back from State Fair Director Kelly Pound, who offered the family free tickets to return another day.
But Pennington said that while she appreciates the offer, she and Morse feel their daughter was too traumatized by the encounter to risk a return visit to the fair this year.
Pennington also said she doesn’t think just offering the family free tickets was an adequate response, and that she worries that other families could be attacked and other children traumatized by the man’s anti-gay tirades, even if they aren’t LGBT families.
Pennington suggested that fair officials should remove the Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship in America and their booth from the fair. Sue Gooding, a spokeswoman for fair officials, said Thursday, Oct. 6, that while the group wouldn’t be asked to leave the fair, such behavior violates fair policy and will not be tolerated.
“That’s not the way we expect our vendors to act,” Gooding said, adding that vendors are expected to stay in their booths and should not call people over.
She said that Pound had gone to the booth already to have a discussion with the Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship after the incident was reported, letting them know that “We’re not going to put up with this.”
Gooding said that while “the conversation went well,” Pound may decide to have a second conversation with the group before this weekend, when some 200 people have indicated on the “Gay Day at the State Fair” Facebook group page that they will be attending the fair on Saturday, Oct. 8.
Fairgoers who would like to visit the Full Gospel Businessmen’s Association of America will find its booth outside the Pan Am Arena located behind the Cotton Bowl, on Nimitz Avenue.
………………………
The FGBMF
For more information on the Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship in America,
go online to fgbmfamerica.com/wordpress. According to the website, the group’s
mission is:
“• To reach men everywhere for Jesus Christ, taking particular note that in many instances men can reach others of their same social, cultural or business interests more readily than anyone else.
“• To call men to God: to help men become born again, baptized in the Holy Spirit, operate in the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, and take the Good News to the nations.
“• To mentor young men who have never had positive male role models by being a spiritual father to them.
“• To provide a basis of fellowship among all men everywhere: by creating a fellowship not directly associated with any specific church, but cooperating with all denominations and inspiring our members to be active in their respective churches.
“• To bring about a greater measure of unity and harmony in the Body of Christ; where members are united in a common effort to spread the Good News and to be in full fellowship and submission to the true Head of the church . . . the Lord Jesus Christ.”
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition October 7, 2011.
Here’s what I think we should all do: Bring a small rock to the Fair with you. Either paint or affix with a sticker a bible chapter and verse number that refers to loving your fellow man or the bit about only those without sin casting the first stone. Very quietly, and without speaking to them, set it at their booth and leave. They will have so many rainbow painted, bible-versed reminders of what it is to really be “Christ-like” by the end of every day that they will need wheelbarrows to move it all out. If you really must converse with these people, just say “God bless you” as you leave them your gift. <3
Tish M. has the perfect idea.
I hope the entire LBGT community go to this booth as well. I guess this organization thought the straights still had the power at the fair. WRONG, BITCHES!
They just posted an update to the story that the person who did this will no longer work at that booth, they will send the ladies an apology & tickets for another day!! 🙂
Great news!
I hope they have a wonderful time on their second trip.
Nice post Tish! 🙂
Mike
So apparently, while the administration says “This won’t be tolerated,” Sue Gooding clearly shows that by allowing them to remain, it clearly will be. Par for the course.
I almost feel sorry for the man who harassed these folks. From the way he acted, it sounds like he’s had a very unhappy life as a self-loathing closet case flagellating himself with religion. People like that often explode in a jealous rage when they see folks living a lifestyle they themselves secretly desire.
Tish M: Invoking the phrase “let he who is without sin cast the first stone” indirectly implies that homosexuality IS a sin — which it isn’t.
Are you sure that’s the message people should be giving to these people…?
Gotta say, I’m a little miffed that the article feels the need to to explain that the couple didn’t obviously “seem” gay. Why does it matter what they look like? Would the Full Gospel men/man have been less to blame if they’d both been wearing gay pride t-shirts?
Stef: Reread the story and you will notice Ms. Pennington said that she does “look” gay, but that her partner doesn’t, and that they were not engaged in any kind of public display of affection. Her point was that they were just walking through the fairgrounds, not doing anything to draw attention, and that this man still accosted them. The point is not that we should try not to “look gay” or that there is something wrong with looking or being gay, but that people like this are going to go out of there way to accost us, insult us and assault us. He was not provoked in any way and had no justification whatsoever for what he did
I don’t think Sue Gooding understands her own phrase “will not be tolerated”. What she’s done IS tolerate it. Their assault (literal legal assault, and a hate crime on top of that) on a paying patron of the fair is BEING tolerated. Every moment they’re not shut down & ejected is tolerating their actions.
@charles It’s very common to call anybody who expresses such homophobia a closeted gay. We should stop doing that. I for one don’t want to be associated with such people, even indirectly. Call ’em what they are, hate-filled members of the Religious Reich.
@Tammye: I understand that, and it’s a lot more excusable if Ms. Pennington pointed that out without being asked, but it still irked me that it had to be brought up. It’s like the writer assumes we’d be less sympathetic if the family was being more blatant about their lives. Maybe if it had been worded differently it wouldn’t bother me so much.
After my uncle was killed in World War II my aunt’s unmarried sister moved in to help her raise her young son–two women going to the fair with a young child. He was totally insensitive with his assumtion that these two women were gay in the first place. The other “men” at the booth should have intervened.
MAYBE PUT A ROCK ON THE COUNTER AT THERE BOOTH, AND TELL THEM TO STONE US TO DEATH. If they throw it , the get the police over there and have them charged with assault.
@Stef: I see your point, I guess to me it came across differently. To me the women and the writer were both pointing out people like this man are not interested in “live and let live” attitudes and they don’t just have problems with “activists.”
Well, the man who iniatiated the conversation is protected by his freedom of speech. Whenever you are in a public place, the public is watching and sets the norm for what is accepted, verbal and nonverbal…. You all live in Texas, and unfortunately, its the bible belt. While this is the standard and majority, my guess is that not much will change for a long long time…especially when your state has an absymal educational system. I feel for the women were subject to this, but is a reminder that not everything is always cochure.
The man who initiated the conversation may be protected by the 1st Ammendment, but he did two things that Jesus condemned–“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” (Matthew 7:1,2) “He [Jesus] called a little child and had him stand among them. . . . if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” (Matthew 18:2-6) The crying child should have convicted him of his inappropriate behavior as a so-called “full-gospel” person. Obviously it didn’t.
I hate that this happened. I live in North Texas and though I don’t get very much flack for being gay in this little town, it doesn’t take a leap to remember high school and the cruelty that can be some of humanity. Not only should you fear calling attention to yourself by doing things –heaven forbid- that come second nature, like holding hands, you have to have a keen eye before every booth and every interaction in order to avoid soliciting harassment. I’m sure very social conservatives read this and say, maybe it gives the parents an opportunity to teach their children the abnormality and sinfulness of homosexuality. To me, I would’ve liked the two women to stay; instead use the moment to teach: hey, sometimes people try to say hurtful things about people who are different so we’re just going to move on somewhere else. Try to use the moment to lead by example (though, not to nullify everything I just said, sticks and stones is a crock and it’d be really difficult to have very much fun after all that emotionally and mentally -plus, I don’t have kids so my way is very easier said than done). I hope incidents like these number less and less and time goes on –I’m ready for the rest of the world to catch up already.
@Gordon (not Jennings) – I hadn’t actually thought of it being interpreted that way and I certainly don’t mean to imply that. Thank you for pointing that out. Even though that specific worker has been dispatched, I don’t feel that it was enough. I think Michael has it right “Every moment they’re not shut down & ejected is tolerating their actions”. As a mother myself, I can also see how staying at the fair would’ve been damn near impossible with a hysterical child. The stone idea that I had was just my way of a peaceful, yet strong, way to do so – to say to these vendors that hey, love is the answer, not hate. Hate gets you nowhere, and each rock represents a person who is commited to that idea. Maybe a little reminder about what Jesus is supposed to be all about. That said, I’ve never been Christian, but even I understand that. Plus, I’m straight, but not narrow. I understand that it’s easier for me to say it when I don’t have to deal with first hand hate on a regular basis. All I can do is my best to make the world a better place for everyone. Speaking about against actions like this is always the first step.
A bunch of men, that have a stated goal of recruiting more men, and young men, to their group, so that they can share one another’s company, sounds fishy to me.
I’m looking at the picture, trying to figure out which one “looks lesbian.”
Apparently my background being effeminate enough that I grew up being told I look/act gay doesn’t help. 🙂
I find it ironic that the third mission goal is stated as, “To mentor young men who have never had positive male role models by being a spiritual father to them.” Shouting at and verbally accosting women in public hardly sets an example as “positive male role model.”
I don’t think the fair officials’ response went far enough. Sure, the guy is gone. Sure, they get free tickets. But a little girl has been traumatized. They need to call the family into the office, sit the little girl down, and explain to her that what the man did was wrong and that he has been punished for it. Sure, the mothers can do this–but it would mean a heck of a lot more coming from the “public” element that created this hell for the girl.
In this news story, there is a link to an “apology” letter. Not once in this “apology” letter does it say, “I’m sorry.” He thanks them for coming, talks about faith and family, but never once says, this will never happen again & I am truly sorry for your experences, but here is a free ticket to try it again?
Some parts of christianity are the curse of the west just as much as parts of Islam are the curse of the middle east. These women also deserve to get paid for getting professional help for their kids.
These types of xtians who go around babbling about the bible are of the same religious culture that gave us slavery, the KKk and segregation.
Dobson of the not quite considered a hate group Focus on the Family said it well to some extent.
“Give me a child by the age of 7 and I’ll make him a christian for life”
He didnt say what kind of christian. He did prove that religious education shouldnt occur until kids have enough life knowledge and experience to say “Bull (dropings)”