Count #1:
The little shopping center Magnolia Parke, in which I am currently sitting swilling java at my favorite Gainesville Starbucks, held their annual Greater Gator Beer Festival on Saturday (outside, not inside Starbucks). I'm reading the article about it in Monday's Independent Florida Alligator. The header reads "Festival offers free beers". It looked like a great deal, especially since samples were offered of beers from around the world, even from countries like Ukraine, Israel, and Guatemala. One of the attendees is quoted in Maria Piquet's article as saying, "My favorite kind of beer is free beer. And there's a lot of it here." Only one problem: as the penultimate paragraph in the article points out, admission to the "free" festival cost $25 in advance and $30 at the gate. Huh? I vaguely remember this discrepancy from reality with last year's festival!
Count #2:
On a sadder note, Dove World Outreach Center, the church that instigated the "Islam is of the Devil" controversy in Gainesville, decided to picket the Pride Parade and festival at about the same time that the "beer festival" was going on. In the same Alligator issue that wrote up about all of the "free beer", Dove World's leader Terry Jones was quoted as saying (of their protest), "It may get nasty; homosexuals can be very aggressive." What really disturbed me the most was the church's use of children in their demonstration against gays. They were carrying around signs denouncing homosexuality and sporting "Islam is of the Devil" shirts. I feel some severe manipulation was going on here, both by their parents and by Terry Jones. On the positive side, the general public pretty much rejected Dove World's message and cheered the festivities. This year's events marked the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in New York City, widely hailed as the beginning of the gay rights movement as it has become today.
"Free beer" or "Homo leads to hell" (as one of the Dove World signs read): choose your falsehood. Or better, use your ability to reason critically and reject both.
At the time, I was oblivious to both "festivals"; I had driven in late from Jacksonville Friday night, done the Heart Walk Saturday morning, and went to work that afternoon. I believe I know why both the beer festival and Pride Parade were held this weekend: no Gator football! And realizing this, it might be a good idea to see what my hometown will be up to the next time UF football has a bye week.
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The "free beer" thing might actually be skirting a law. Some 20 years ago, I went to a folk music and dance workshop at Davis and Elkins College, in West Virginia. They had a beer hall on campus, called the Ice House. Only, the Ice House didn't have a license to sell beer.
ReplyDeleteThe law, however, allowed them to give beer away for free... just not to sell it. And the law allowed them to sell tickets, no problem. So you'd buy a ticket, and then if you took a ticket to the bar, they'd take it and give you a free beer.
"Homosexuals can be very aggressive," eh? He-he. As can religious fanatics, clearly. I'm glad you found the thing with the children disturbing, but I wonder why you're surprised.
Indoctrination of children before they're able to reason it out for themselves... is how religion keeps itself going. You remark on it because this is an egregious group that you think is over the top. But the groups you agree with do the same thing.
Me, I consider religious indoctrination of children to be a form of child abuse: people fill their heads with nonsense and fantasy, and tell them it's real. If we did that in other contexts, people would be pounding on the doors, holding torches.
Anyway, it sounds like Terry Jones is right up there with Fred Phelps.
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