Central Arkansas Pride

[tim2462]

This is a thread about gay culture...so that we don't have to derail other threads :-)

Many people outside of the area, even outside of the Hillcrest area don't realize how Hillcrest has become a small gay district. A gay district aka gay village aka gayborhood is usually an urban geographic location with generally recognized boundaries where a large number of gay and lesbian people, as well as bisexual and transgender people live. They usually contain a number of gay-oriented establishments, such as gay bars or pubs, nightclubs, bathhouses, restaurants, bookstores, and other businesses. Such areas may represent a gay-friendly oasis in an otherwise hostile city, or may simply have a high concentration of gay residents and/or businesses.

Hillcrest lacks some of that, but certainly has a high gay population. More and more gay people are moving there, as it has become a well known gay neighborhood. It's a lot like Conway...it has become somewhat of a gay mecca in Arkansas. Now, gay people are moving there for that reason.

Many businesses in Hillcrest are gay-owned. All others are "gay friendly."

Riverdale is also home to a lot of gays, and is where the top gay clubs are in Little Rock. Since Riverdale is adjacent to Hillcrest, these two areas together will most likely become a more well organized gay district in the future.

Hogwash, it may seem to you that gay people talk about gay all the time...well, we are surrounded by you str8 people talking about str8 stuff all the time. We have a right to talk about our lives as well. Just accept that everybody is going to talk about their lives and what's going on...whether it be gay or str8.

Central Arkansas has quite a large gay population. More than you'd expect in an area this size. It seems that more are moving here from larger cities as well, which will be great for the culture. For a city of this size...we have a surprising number of gay clubs. More than Memphis, OKC, & Tulsa, to name a few. I think we have about the same number as Nashville. Here's a list.

-Backstreet

-Discovery

-The Factory

-Club UBU

-Sidetracks

-Easy Street

There's also Jester's in Hot Springs.

Most other clubs in the area are very gay friendly. Some, like Afterthought in Hillcrest, almost seem

like a gay bar because of the number of gay people there.

Little Rock is a very liberal City. I'm not sure what all transpired for it to get to this point, but it really gives us something to be proud about. Hot Springs is also quite liberal. Having such liberal cities around reallyl enhance the quality of life for everyone...even the conservatives that don't realize it :-)

[hogwash]

EDIT

[skirby]

I don't get it. Why does every group try to be special. I tell my sons you have the right to be equal but not special. The government should follow this themselves and stop making certain groups of people special. As for the marriage issue it is not a religious issue. Two people can get married in church but unless they have the government issued paper they are not married by law. Why should the government even support marriage? Why should two people living together have tax advantages over single people? Two people can get married in a church or the courthouse. I know of no other function that a religious organization and the government can both perform and it is legal.

[arkansas_buff]

I don't get it. Why does every group try to be special. I tell my sons you have the right to be equal but not special. The government should follow this themselves and stop making certain groups of people special. As for the marriage issue it is not a religious issue. Two people can get married in church but unless they have the government issued paper they are not married by law. Why should the government even support marriage? Why should two people living together have tax advantages over single people? Two people can get married in a church or the courthouse. I know of no other function that a religious organization and the government can both perform and it is legal.

[arkansas_buff]

Interesting quote from the International Journal of Epidemiology...

"In a major Canadian centre, life expectancy at age twenty for gay and bisexual men is eight to twenty years less than for all men. If the same pattern of mortality were to continue, we estimate that nearly half of gay and bisexual men currently aged twenty years will not reach their sixty-fifth birthday. Under even the most liberal assumptions, gay and bisexual men in this urban centre are now experiencing a life expectancy similar to that experienced by all men in Canada in the year 1871."

Robert S. Hogg et al., "Modeling the Impact of HIV Disease on Mortality in Gay and Bisexual Men," International Journal of Epidemiology 26 (1997): 657.

[hogwash]

EDIT

[Aporkalypse]

Hey, I have no comment except that Hillcrest and especially Riverdale come nowhere close to approaching being majority gay or a gay mini-district . Riverdale is particularly ill-suited to be one, it's just a lot of typical apartment and condo complexes. The only thing that's cool about Riverdale is the scenery and the fact it's close to downtown. Riverdale's real identity is that's a place for single 20-somethings. Sure it has the gay clubs but that's more or less because it had ample warehouse space and parking available for cheap rent. The clubs may be cool but the location is decidedly uncool.

The irony, as we both know, is that on a Saturday night one of the largest gay clubs in the Southeast, Discovery, is less than a quarter gay. It's such a cool place it's packed with straight people as well (including the most attractive girls in town). I thought it was pretty neat when they held Miss Gay America there, though.

[johnnydr87]

So why does the United States recognize marriage? Because it was founded as a Christian nation. I know people try hard to deny it, but it's true.

[tim2462]

This is NOT true.

I get annoyed by the right wing propagandists who say this. The notion of the United States being founded as a "Christian" nation is a relatively recent development, starting in the twentieth century. The fact that most of the founding fathers were deists has been in the history books since the nation was founded.

In fact, in the Treaty of Tripoli, John Adams (and thus the official US Government) declared in Article 11:

"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."

I find it amazing that anyone can have the emboldened ignorance to argue otherwise.

It doesn't take much effort in the library or on the Internet, to find chronicles of letters/books/whatever written by founding fathers in which they espouse their religious views.

What did Thomas Jefferson say? (3rd President)

"A professorship of theology should have no place in our institution." (Regarding theology at the University of Virginia. He did not consider subject at all.)

[tim2462]

Hey, I have no comment except that Hillcrest and especially Riverdale come nowhere close to approaching being majority gay or a gay mini-district . Riverdale is particularly ill-suited to be one, it's just a lot of typical apartment and condo complexes. The only thing that's cool about Riverdale is the scenery and the fact it's close to downtown. Riverdale's real identity is that's a place for single 20-somethings. Sure it has the gay clubs but that's more or less because it had ample warehouse space and parking available for cheap rent. The clubs may be cool but the location is decidedly uncool.

The irony, as we both know, is that on a Saturday night one of the largest gay clubs in the Southeast, Discovery, is less than a quarter gay. It's such a cool place it's packed with straight people as well (including the most attractive girls in town). I thought it was pretty neat when they held Miss Gay America there, though.

[tim2462]

Some interesting history and current events

Gay Culture in Arkansas

The 1970s ended on a high note for gay Arkansans, in that a number of straight-friendly gay discos opened in venues around the state. The 42nd Street Disco in Fayetteville enjoyed a two-year run in the back of the UARK Theatre, one of the first cinemas in the country to screen, in 1976, the gay-themed Rocky Horror Picture Show, soon to become a cult classic. A straight-friendly club called Discovery has been Little Rock

[arkansas_buff]

Johnny, how did I know this would happen? And why the namecalling?:

The Mayflower Compact (authored by William Bradford) 1620 {sodEmoji.{sodEmoji.|}} Signing of the Mayflower painting {sodEmoji.{sodEmoji.|}} Picture of Compact

[Aporkalypse]

Let's just kill this thread. I don't really think this needs to go any further and really doesn't have any pertinence to what this forum's for. Just my two cents.

[hogwash]

EDIT

[tim2462]

Yeah, we can make a thread about the black population of NWA, but a thread about gay culture in central arkansas is just way out of hand. If you don't like a thread, don't post in it. But, don't think because you want to be judgemental and argue against something, that the thread should just be killed. I will post information for the people that care to read it. It was just started yesterday, have you noticed the number of views? There are a lot of threads and discussion that I wouldn't consider to be pertinent information...but I'm certainly not going around suggesting you shouldn't talk about it or that the thread should be "killed."

If someone gets out of hand, they should be banned, like any other forum. Don't shut down a thread that obviously people care about because a few people don't agree with it.

[mcheiss]

I'm not going to kill this thread. However, I don't like where some of the content about religon is going. Let's try and stick to what Tim set the thread up for.

[CentralArkansas]

Edited in:

Isn't this interesting too?

Divorce rates (per 1000 people) 1990 2000 2004

Allows same-sex marriage:

Massachusetts 2.8 3.0 2.2

Allows same sex civil-unions:

Connecticut 3.2 2.0 2.9

"Bible Belt:"

Alabama 6.1 5.4 4.7

Arkansas 6.9 6.9 6.3

Georgia 5.5 3.9 n.a.

Kentucky 5.8 5.4 4.9

Louisiana n.a. n.a. n.a. (no data?)

Mississippi 5.5 5.2 4.5

Missouri 5.1 4.8 3.8

North Carolina 5.1 4.8 4.4

Oklahoma 7.7 3.7 n.a.

South Carolina 4.5 3.7 3.2

Tennessee 6.5 6.1 5.0

Texas 5.5 4.2 3.6

Virginia 4.4 4.3 4.0

West Virginia 5.3 5.2 4.7

Coincidence?

[johnnydr87]

I was going to respond quote by quote about how John Adams supported separation of Church and State, Thomas Paine advocated deism (in his book "Age of Reason"), but as I was going through the quotes, it became more and more evident that you did not read any of them (esp. with all the excess verbiage: "click here," "page 1, page 2" etc.

Admittedly, the thread has derailed, and I was majorly at fault. I just felt the itching to respond when claims were made.

CentralArkansas, I did not come to a conclusion on my post. I merely posted divorce statistics from those those two northeastern states and compared them to "Bible Belt" states. It seems you came to an interesting conclusion that I had no part in making (other than admittedly laying out the statistics in a juxtaposed, suggestive manner.) Care to tell us your conclusion? You're right: there are multiple causes. (Did you know there are studies showing the inverse relationship between education and religiosity?)

This thread would probably either best be deleted, or the political posts solely.

[jcaruth]

what does this thread have to do with urban developement? There are plenty of forums on the internet to have this discussion but I dont see its purpose here.

[Aporkalypse]

Yeah, we can make a thread about the black population of NWA, but a thread about gay culture in central arkansas is just way out of hand. If you don't like a thread, don't post in it. But, don't think because you want to be judgemental and argue against something, that the thread should just be killed. I will post information for the people that care to read it. It was just started yesterday, have you noticed the number of views? There are a lot of threads and discussion that I wouldn't consider to be pertinent information...but I'm certainly not going around suggesting you shouldn't talk about it or that the thread should be "killed."

If someone gets out of hand, they should be banned, like any other forum. Don't shut down a thread that obviously people care about because a few people don't agree with it.

[mcheiss]

what does this thread have to do with urban developement? There are plenty of forums on the internet to have this discussion but I dont see its purpose here.

[tim2462]

I wasn't referring to the presence of the thread, just the hate between a couple of people posting in it.

Now, what the hell were you referring to that I was arguing against? I made a very supportive comment toward gays in the Little Rock community. I may have denied that places were 50% gay, but I never said anything negative about gay people. Quite the opposite. Don't make opponents out of your friends.

[Aporkalypse]

Yes, you have made very supportive comments about gay people. I wasn't saying that you were arguing about anything. I was referring to the people that were. You just said that because of that, it should be killed. Neither of us should be quoting perentages, as they are only guesses, not fact. For the many reasons I've stated, there's no way to pin down a percentage of gay people anywhere, whether it be in the world, in Arkansas, in Little Rock, in Hillcrest, in Riverdale, or at Discovery. There's just simply no way to pin down a percentage, so I see no need in arguing it. When you walk into a room, you could make an educated guess on the percentage of blacks vs whites, blondes vs brunettes, men vs women...but you cannot pick every gay person out of a crowd. We do not fit a mold. We come in many forms...not just the stereotypical feminine guys. That being said, I can tell that you are a very liberal and gay friendly person. You add a lot to this forum, and I value your opinion...but when it comes to arbitrarily spitting out percentages, I cannot agree with that.

[tim2462]

Here are some area links

http://www.littlerockpride.com

http://www.littlerockcapitalpride.org/

http://www.conwaypride.org/

Backstreet - Little Rock

http://www.backstreetdanceclub.com

Discovery - Little Rock

http://www.latenightdisco.com

Sidetracks - North Little Rock

http://www.sidetracksnlr.com

Club UBU - Little Rock

http://www.theaquarium.bizland.com/

Jester's - Hot Springs

http://www.jestershotsprings.net/

Eureka Springs Pride Site

with information on diversity weekends

http://www.eurekapride.com

Will add more soon.

[tim2462]

An article from the Arkansas Times about Eureka Springs.

It says that back in the late 80's, the gay population was estimated at 20% there...and that since then and still, gay people continute to relocate there.

http://www.arktimes.com/Articles/ArticleVi...29-1eb44853e328