In last week's article entitled, «To Boycott or Not? Fundies Flip and Flop,» we told you about «traditional family values» newspaper publisher Al Pryor blaming the Eureka Springs gay community for his publication's potentially dire financial staits.

We'd like nothing better than to give you a link to Al's Galton's whistle wisdom in its entirety, but we suspect Al's opening sentence, «I write this against the advice of my board of directors,» had something to do with the fact that Al's editorial has been removed from the Patriots' Herald web site.

Briefly, Al refused to accept an ad promoting Eureka's Fall Diversity Weekend. A local skirmish ensued, wherein citizens and visitors vowed to boycott the Patriots' Herald and its advertisers. Al fired back with a bang, and a whimper, complaining--and we're quoting directly from our print version of the web-excised editorial:

It has been a very real struggle to keep the Patriot on the streets at times because of the lack of business ads to pay the bills. Now we find ourselves faced with much hate from many gay people and others in our area because we would not run the diversity weekend ad.... [snipped: a statement about how some of Al's best friends are gay.]

Now with the gays up in arms against us because we would not run the diversity weekend ad, they threaten to stop all business transactions with businesses that do run ads with us. This will cause more advertisers to not use the pages of the Patriot to advertise their business. This is their mentality and will likely further harm our ad base. Without ad support we will not survive.

That was last week.

This week, Rev. Phil Wilson--noted political activist, business consultant and Gay News sloganeer weighed in.

Here's the link to Rev. Wilson's letter: www.patriotsherald.net, but click fast, Gay News readers! Patriots' Herald links disappear without warning. (We assume this phenomenon is related to the Rapture.)

Rev. Wilson says:

Based on his standards and principles, Al Pryor defended, in his recent issue of the Patriot's Herald (November 14), why he could not publish an ad promoting diversity weekend. Because of this position many in the gay community are angry, even to the point of boycotting those businesses who advertise in his paper. I find their attitude insensible and totally unwarranted since, in the previous issue (November 8), Al Pryor published a lengthy article by Phyl Shimaka that was favorable to the rights of the gay community to exist in the Eureka community. If Al Pryor was as against the gays as the gay community seems to portray him then would he have published her article? I think not.

OK. Let's recap.

Al complains that «the gays» are destroying his business because he refused to take money for a Diversity Weekend ad. Phil points out that Al supports «the gays» because he pays a columnist to write gay-positive copy.

If you'll forgive our use of the term, let us get this straight:

The Patriots' Herald will not take money to promote gay-positive events. But it will gleefully pay money to publish gay-positive op/eds. The «standards and values» Rev. Phil vigorously defends involve Rev. Al refusing to be paid for gay-oriented content...while, all the while, paying for gay-oriented content.

Say what?

Pardon us, for a moment, while we quiet the cartoon music playing in our heads.

If it is true, as he tells us, that Al is about to starve, that his future career as a Spring Street pencil-seller is imminent, it doesn't make much sense for Al to refuse payment for the same thing he'll dig in his own pockets to buy.

Then again, the Rev's Al and Phil's plan to save Eureka Springs by calling for a nationwide boycott on ...uh... Eureka Springs didn't make much sense to us either.

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