No Gays allowed in kissing contest in Madison, WI

[WI_DEM]

A Madison Radio station, Z104 www.z104fm.com , is not allowing gays in a kissing contest they are sponsoring at West Towne Mall this Saturday. Their official rules state, "contestants in teh contest must be of the opposite sex."

A protester says, "It's blatantly discriminatory to a group of people based on their sexual orientation."

The mall says, "The rule represents concern for the 'safety and comfort of their customers.'"

This is Madison, supposedly a progressive city and one with a large gay population, for Pete's sake.

I got this from this mornings Wisconsin State Journal.

[951-Riverside]

1. You can contact their studio line @ 608-321-0436

You can call them for free using a program called VoipStunt or you can contact their Program Director @ [e-mail]

[rpgamerd00d]

2. Safety? "News: Gay kiss kills 32 in mall - film at 11" WTF?!

Or do they mean:

"If a redneck sees a gay kiss, he might start a fight."

Yeah, that is what it means, it means they are preventing "temptation to gaybashers to bash gays".

SUE. SUE NOW. SUE OFTEN.

[GreenPartyVoter]

3. I was gonna say this sounds weird coming from Madison

[Davion]

4. They've actually removed that rule and changed locations.

"After hearing from our listeners, Z104 has decided to conduct the 2nd Annual Kiss Off on Saturday February 11th, 2006 in an alternate location - and the contest will be open to everyone. It is not Z104's policy to exclude people from contests based on sexual orientation; that rule should not have been included. We apologize to anyone who was offended. The contest will now be held in front of the Z104 studios at 2651 South Fish Hatchery Road beginning at 10am on Saturday, February 11th". -Statement from Jeff Tyler, VP/GM of Z104

http://www.z104fm.com/pages/kissoff.html

[w13rd0]

6. Good...

...I'm glad to see a station realize the error and act in a responsible fashion.

[Zenlitened]

7. Well, now THAT is encouraging.

Very big of them, to acknowledge that. :applause:

8. good - equal rights and fair play n/t

[WI_DEM]

9. Wunderful!!

Ok--so the will the people prevails.

[CottonBear]

5. The main problem here is the mall location. Malls are private property

not public property.

I'm glad the event organizers moved the event to a public space.

[saltpoint]

10. Well thank god gay kissing has been forbidden in West Towne Mall

in Madison.

Several states away, it would have bothered me terribly to think that the general public shopping on a given day might be forced to witness the tenderness and affection between two human beings. We just can't have that. More to the point, we can't allow young people to see anyone kissing, but especially gay people kissing, because it's a well-known fact that affection, tenderness, and mutual respect would detract from young peoples' pursuit of material crap and superficial adult role models.

____

Shame on the morons at the Madison mall.