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seretogis · 07-02-2004, 12:17 PM

Quote:

'No Gays With Guns,' Parade Organizers Say
By Susan Jones
CNSNews.com Morning Editor
July 02, 2004

(CNSNews.com) - A pro-Second Amendment group calls it ironic that organizers of a Columbus, Ohio, "Gay Pride" parade tried to keep gun-carrying homosexuals from taking part in the event.

The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) is condemning what it calls "double-standard bigotry" directed at members of the Pink Pistols, a pro-gun organization.

Stonewall Columbus, the group that organized the June 27 "Gay Pride" parade, warned members of the Pink Pistols -- prior to the parade -- to leave their guns at home.

"Should anyone bring a firearm (to) this Stonewall Columbus event, the firearm will be confiscated and not returned and the individual will be rejected from the event," Stonewall Columbus Executive Director Kate Anderson was quoted as saying in an email to the Pink Pistols.

"I have notified all Pride Committee members and co-chairs and I will also alert all security personnel and the police," she told the Pink Pistols.

Sure enough, after last Sunday's parade, members of the Central Ohio Pink Pistols said they were confronted by a Stonewall Columbus contingent.

The group's leader demanded that Pink Pistol members surrender their sidearms, despite state laws giving law-abiding citizens the right to carry weapons.

"It is remarkable that an organization which has fought bigotry against gays and lesbians would itself be so eager to practice social bigotry against members of its own community for merely exercising their constitutional right to bear arms," said CCRKBA Executive Director Joe Waldron.

"Anderson and Stonewall Columbus need to realize that discrimination against gun owners is also bigotry. How does it look when a gay rights organization tells gay and lesbian gun owners 'We don't want your kind around here?'

"Perhaps most stunning about this situation," Waldron added, "is that the Pink Pistols promote armed self-defense against the kind of mindless brutality that manifested itself in the murder of Matthew Shepard in Wyoming. How any organization claiming to represent the rights of gay citizens could exclude the right of self-defense in that equation is astonishing."

CCRKBA said Stonewall Columbus owes the Pink Pistols an apology -- and a "promise to practice the tolerance it preaches" at all future Gay Pride events.

CCRKBA says it is dedicated to preserving firearms freedoms through active lobbying of elected officials and facilitating grass-roots organization of gun rights activists in local communities throughout the United States.

I am honestly not at all surprised. Often those who preach "tolerance" of one group are ignorant enough to irrationally fear another group. Pink Pistols is a gay pro-gun organization which encourages gays to be familiar with and carry (where legal, of course) a handgun. To single them out and deny them their right to carry is blatant discrimination against gun owners, and is deplorable.