| Gay Laurel, Mississippi |
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| In Laurel's early years, the citizens built this small southern Mississippi town with a policy of progressivism that was unique for the South and Mississippi. Though the city operated under the system of segregation that defined the South through the early 1970s, the northern industrialists who operated Laurel's major industries insisted on giving African-Americans as much in terms of equal pay and housing as could be afforded under the unequal laws that governed them. In education, though segregated schools were maintained as required by law, Laurel attempted to afford the separate systems as much equality as was possible considering the circumstances. This progressive policy affected every aspect of society in Laurel. As a result, life in Laurel was of a higher quality than in most Southern towns of similar sizes and circumstances. There existed a level of tolerance in Laurel for diversity that was unique in the South. While it can not be honestly said that Laurel was without the negative elements of racism, elitism, and religious fanaticism that forced the South to lag behind the rest of the country, the people of Laurel were at least afforded the opportunity to make the most of a more enlightened way of thinking and living if only they were willing to take advantage of it. In this atmosphere, the gay community of Laurel flourished. While open homosexuality was not condoned, gay men and women were allowed to participate in many arenas of Laurel's society. But this tolerance had only one caveat: Don't flaunt your sexuality in public. This agreement became a Southern phenomenon that ruled the relationship between gay Southerners and the larger community wherever they found an atmosphere of acceptance. It was the inspiration of President Clinton's idea of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Many people today find that this arrangement is unsatisfactory and dishonest. But actually, many gay people in Laurel at the time did not find fault with it because sexuality was generally something to be kept secret and behind closed doors anyway, gay or straight. It was no more acceptable for a married couple in Laurel who had been together for 50 years to show affection for one another in public than it was for a gay or lesbian couple to display the same behavior. Most did not see a double-standard in this arrangement. It was not until sex came out of the bedroom and was displayed and flaunted in popular culture (generally about the 1960s and 1970s) that the arrangement became unacceptable for many because, though straight sex was allowed out in the open (in song, TV, and literature), gay sex was still required to stay closeted. There were some gay Laurelites during this time that found the situation unacceptable. The sexual revolution had not yet arrived in Laurel (and some argue that is still hasn't, but that's another story), and those that refused to accept the double-standard left Laurel for more accepting regions such as New York and even New Orleans and Atlanta. Many gay Laurelites, however, did not wish to leave their hometown. They were comfortable in Laurel, had strong ties to family and neighbors that they were unwilling to sever, and felt accepted enough by the community-at-large that the double-standard could be overlooked and ignored. Within these circumstances, a close-knit gay community in Laurel was built. Gay Laurelites were allowed to live, work, play, and worship in an atmosphere that did not quite condone their lifestyles but did not persecute them for it either. The Southern version of Don't Ask Don't Tell remained in force and afforded Laurel's gay community a chance to stay at home and live quietly - albeit discreetly - as they saw fit. The arrangment between the gay community in Laurel and their straight neighbors began to unravel in the early 1990s with the arrival of a group of lesbian activists known as "Camp Sister Spirit." Led by a lesbian couple by the name of Brenda and Wanda Henson, Camp Sister Spirit began on the Mississippi Gulf Coast in the 1980s. The Hensons had noble intensions in the beginning, operating under a policy of community education in issues of gender and sexual orientation discrimination while also providing assistance to the victims of such discrimination. Though these are noble intentions in and of themselves, the Hensons' personalities and character worked against them. Avowed and unashamed feminists, their activism was nevertheless reactionary in that they met any and all opposition to their purposes and policies with a vehement, almost vicious backlash of emotion and anger. Such passionate displays of emotion are not usually well received in the South and, as expected, more rational people with better control of their emotions took such displays as an indication of deceit and flawed character. For whatever reason, the Hensons decided to move their mission away from the Gulf Coast. They began to look for property and found a large tract of land in rural southeastern Jones County near the little town of Ovett. Apparently, the price of the land was particularly appealing and the Hensons were able to purchase the property and began to set up what they came to call Camp Sister Spirit. All would have been well, supposedly, until a Halloween party was planned shortly after their move to Ovett. The Hensons had long practiced a form of paganism known as Wicca, a religion that is quite popular with feminists because of their view of divinity as possessing specifically female characteristics. Wicca is particularly scorned in the South - the homeland of the Southern Baptist Bible Belt - because of the misconception by fundamentalist Christians that it is another name for Satanism and a modern disguise for satanic witchcraft. As practitioners of Wicca, the Hensons were anxiously looking forward to celebrating Halloween, a modern celebration with its origins in the pagan religion of the Celts of Britain and Ireland who the Wiccans view as the founders of their religion. The Hensons wished to invite certain neighbors to this party, but made it clear that only women (or "womyn" as the Hensons termed it), girls, and very small boys were allowed to participate. The secretive and "witchy" character of this party, combined with their feminist activism, was enough to send their fundamentalist neighbors to the brink of panic. The Hensons were accused of recruiting local women and girls for lesbianism and witchcraft. In true form to their character, the Hensons met such accusations emotionally and with counter-accusations of sexism and homophobia. While the Henson's accusations against their neighbors were very likely true, it was their lack of control over their own emotions that made almost everyone in Jones County dismiss their protests. The Hensons feared a witch hunt, literally, and began to arm themselves - if not with guns and ammunition - then with an army of fellow activists from other parts of the country that were willing to come to their aid. The Hensons continued to live on their Ovett property after things settled down. But they lived very uneasily with their neighbors. The controversy over the Hensons and their camp eventually spread to Laurel, where the events and issues of the surrounding rural communities rarely earned notice from the city dwellers. The problem with the controversy arriving in Laurel was that it threatened to violate the Don't Ask Don't Tell agreement that the gay community had with their straight neighbors. Suddenly, straight Laurel was forced to deal openly not only with homosexuality and the recruitment of future of homosexuals (as some fundamentalist Christians insisted that the gay community conducted on a regular basis) but with the more fearful threat of witchcraft and Satanism. The Henson's lack of control over their emotions did not help the situation at all. To be quite blunt, the Hensons offended the gentile nature of Southern notions of socially acceptable behavior. They were considered to be crass and uncouth. When they lost their temper, the Hensons could come across as threats to the physical well-being of any person - male or female - who earned their ire. None of this bode well for the relationship between Laurel's gay community and their straight neighbors. The straw that broke the camel's back came on the evening of Friday, 7 October 1994. Two citizens of the gay community, Bobby Walters and Joe Shoemake, both of whom were well known and respected throughout Laurel, were murdered by a young man who wished to find money so that he could play poker with some older friends. News of the deaths of Bobby and Joe spread quickly through the gay community on the morning of Saturday, October 8. Tension in the gay community had been at levels never before seen in Laurel ever since the Henson's arrival and subsequent clash with their neighbors. Naturally, many feared the worst, that perhaps Walters and Shoemake became the first victims of gay-bashing as the tension escalated to a new and deadly level. Before the sheriff's department could even begin a proper investigation, the Hensons appeared on the local news broadcast on WDAM demanding intervention by Federal authorities into what was to them an obvious hate crime. They called for assistance from gay activists from across the country. Their call was heeded by groups from New York, Washington, and even San Francisco. Before long, Laurel was besieged by groups demanding to be included in the criminal investigation. But the police authorities of the South, including the Jones County Sheriff's Department, are not prone to allow interference in criminal investigations from outsiders. Even the Federal authorities find it difficult to intervene in local affairs when they are required to do so. The more that the "outside agitators" interfered, the more that the local authorities became hostile and the more the citizens of Laurel became indignant. The local gay community in Laurel - mistakenly associated with Camp Sister Spirit and the "outside agitators" - were blamed by the community-at-large for the unwanted attention that Laurel was receiving in this case. And since they were partly to blame, they had violated the one stipulation of the long-standing Don't Ask Don't Tell agreement that had dictated the relationship between the two communities. The religious leaders of Laurel were now free to preach against homosexuality and its tolerance in the God-fearing Christian society of Laurel. Homophobia in Laurel increased exponentially. Gay Laurelites, who had previously been accepted as members in good standing of Laurel's society, were now viewed with suspicion and scorn as sinners (in the very least) and as sexual perverts and predators (at the very worst). To make matters even worse, J. Ronald Parrish, the attorney that agreed to represent Walters' and Shoemake's killer, Marvin McClendon, attempted to use the town's homophobic backlash to the murders to McClendon's advantage. He attempted to portray Walters and Shoemake as predators who were intent on sexually violating McClendon, who he portrayed as a poor innocent child who meant only to defend himself from a sexual attack. Parrish very nearly succeeded in this hateful strategy, and many believed - as the trial wound down and the jury retired to deliberate - that he would prevail against the more reasonable arguments of the District Attorney. However, eventually Laurel's more rational side prevailed. Many were stunned that the jury rejected the "gay panic" strategy used by Parrish and found McClendon guilty of two counts of first-degree murder. In spite of this, the tolerance displayed by the jury did not reflect the tolerance of the community-at-large as it once had. Gay life in Laurel after the McClendon trial would never be the same again. Today, the gay community is a veiled community, living as quietly and unassumingly as possible in an atmosphere dominated by religious fanaticism and political conservatism that borders on the fascist side. To be sure, small pockets of tolerance do exist, particularly among the social elite that always managed to stay aloof from the religious and political under currents of the rest of Laurel's society. Regardless, it is certain that the golden age of Laurel's gay society are now remembered as mere history. Four years after the McClendon trial,, on New Year's Eve 1999, another gay Laurelite, Jamie Ray Tolbert, was abducted from a gay night cluib in Biloxi and murdered. Many feared that the invasion of gay activists that had occured during the McClendon Trial would play out again. Fortunately, because Tolbert's murder occurred outside of Jones County, Laurel was spared the feared invasion. But homophobia increased just as it had in 1994 as many straight Laurelites came to believe - fueled by the homophobic preaching of fundamentalist ministers - that the sensibilities of Christian society were under permanant attack. In the 2000 Census, the United States Census Bureau attempted to record the number of same-sex couples living in the same household in each of the 50 states. The Bureau did thati by asking the registrant of each household the sex of the adults living within the household and then allowing them to identify unmarried partners as opposed to simply "roommate" or "boarder" that suggested a non-sexual relationship. Similar questions were asked in the 1990 census, so the Bueau would then be able to determine if such relationships increaed in the 10 years between. Their findings for Mississippi, Tennesse, and Arkansas were released to the public in August 2001. A total of 4,774 same-sex couples residing in the same household in Mississippi reported their relationship to the Census Bureau. According to Equality Mississippi and the Human Rights Campaign, this figure represented a 609% increase in the number of same-sex couples living in the same household from the 1990 figures. Of the total reported in Mississippi, 109 couples resided in Jones County. The problem with these figures is that they in no way attempt to determine the number of single gay men and lesbians. Nor do they attempt to record the number of gay couples that live in separate households for what ever reason. Finally, there were many gay couples in Mississippi and Laurel who were reluctant to report this to the Bureau for fear that they might be personally identified by the government. The crux of the matter is that the gay community in Mississippi and Laurel was not adequately counted in the 2000 Census, just as it is widely believed that the entire population was was undercounted by as much as 35,000 individuals. Therefore, the official tally of 109 couiples (representing 218 individuals) is obviously an under count. It is also not quite understood what information such figures can provide. 109 couples in a county that is roughly 65,000 is only a minute percentage of the total population. Indeed, this provides fodder for those who argue against same-sex civil unions and those who would otherwise like to downplay the importance of gay and lesbian people to society. In 2010, the Census Bureau will once again attempt to take a sounding of the number of same-sex couples living in Laurel. It can only be hoped that more and more of them will take the opportunity to be counted. Any gay person living in Laurel knows very well that the numbers reported in 2000 is too low. The numbers obtained by the Census are only as good as their accuracy. Under counts play into the hands of homophobes and politicians who would rather ignore us. In 2010, report yourself to the Census Bureau! |
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