There is a war on myths and superstitions in this country! :(

Two wrongs don’t make a right.  The restaurant owners are bullies and its sad they are being celebrated.  At the same time, this intolerant politico reminds me of the kind of politician who screams from the rafters the dangers of prostitution (I have Spitzer on the mind today) only to sneak away from the cameras so they can hire a hooker, or twelve.  Not implying anything, but I wouldn’t want to share a public restroom with this guy, and not just because I wouldn’t want to hear his intolerance…

It is their restaurant and they have the absolute right to refuse service to anyone. It is called the free market.

As to the legislator, it is also his right to be a bigoted pinhead.

As strange as this may sound this is one of  the best news headline I’ve seen in a long time. These rightwing bigots must be given a taste of their own medicine. We have no higher an authority than Ron Paul who would agree that a ‘property owner’ has the right to kick someone off his property. The fact that it happened in Tennessee is even more heartening. 2012 is going to be a year of great reform and, hopefully, these bigots and bashers, most of whom congregate in the Republican Party, will start getting the message that we’re not going to tolerate their nonsense, whether it’s homophobia or the not so subtle form of racism  they insist on practicing  I’m also sure that Stacey Campfield is a  Christian who practices a very selective form of Christianity.

The restaurant owners are bullies???   What about the free market, individual liberty and freedom to choose?  Or are those creeds just reserved for the Founder’s “chosen” people?   Perhaps the owners did this scumbag a favor and prevented him from getting a well-deserved beating.  Come on Chuckles, you’ve seen this sign posted before….NO SHOES, NO SHIRT, NO BRAINS…NO SERVICE.  

A typical modern-day GOPster.   Missing a moral/ethical “center” or core.   I’d give him some grits  -  both ends.

Wow.  The deep south is one scary, backwards place. What a scumbag.  Good for the restaurant owner.  I’d do the same thing.

and sponsoring the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” Billwhich tried to stop schools from even mentioning homosexuality for fear that the very words will turn kids gay (which is ridiculous because, if there’s anyone who knows that words aren’t magic, it’s a guy who spent his whole life with a girl’s name).

I think it’s actually like beetlejuice. Say it three times and a Gay person appears. 

I agree with your last line, with the caveat if he comes in and behaves himself he can stay.  If he tries to express his intolerance he’s shown the door.  Same way for ‘alleged’ punk kids or someone else you might deem undesirable (Jew?, elderly?).   Discrimination is wrong in all its forms.  People should be judged by their actions, not their opinions, race, or affiliations.

No, that is not “a typical modern-day GOPster.”  Having several gay family members in my family I will tell you from personal experience that anti-gay bigotry isn’t just a GOP thing.  My family members have also faced the ugliness from democrats…equally.  You  have no idea.

01) Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.
02) Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.
03) Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.
04) Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn’t changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can’t marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.
05) Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Britany Spears’ 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.
06) Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn’t be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren’t full yet, and the world needs more children.
07) Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.
08) Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That’s why we have only one religion in America.
09) Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That’s why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.
10) Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven’t adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.

Bravo. Well done!

*clap* *clap* *clap* *clap*

Stacey Campfield

“Most people realize that AIDS came from the homosexual community —
it was one guy screwing a monkey, if I recall correctly, and then having
sex with men. It was an airline pilot, if I recall.”

“My understanding is that it is virtually — not completely, but
virtually — impossible to contract AIDS through heterosexual sex…very
rarely [transmitted].”

“What’s the average lifespan of a homosexual? it’s very short. Google it yourself.”

Listen to the interview here
http://www.signorile.com/2012/01/interview-with-tn-sen-stacey-campfield.html

“They have the absolute right to refuse service to anyone” Sorry to break it to you, but that’s totally FALSE. While I admire your libertarian attitude, if the Senator had been anything but white, the restaurant owner would be facing Federal charges of violating the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Screwing a monkey? Really? Campfield is just flat out stupid.

The majority of scientists agree that is was spread after an ape or monkey bit a hunter.

When he said screwing a monkey, knowing his past and current beliefs, he was talking about something entirely different.

Generally that is true, however, in several cases, the courts have found that denying service to a person likely to cause discord or an uproar, they are actually protecting the other customers under the Unruh Civil Rights Act of 1964. I cannot remember the actual citation, but I am pretty sure it was a California case involving punk rockers denied access to a funeral.

I realize that I am pretty much optimistic in this kind of stuff. My right to still believe that common sense prevails even if it usually does not.

Bullies for standing up for what is right? I disagree. If you had some racist idiot spewing hatred in your restaurant, wouldn’t you want him out?

The guy was causing a disturbance, he was spewing christian hatred.

Wait wait wait, people can’t be judged by their insane opinions now?

And a selective form of heterosexuality which includes only rentboys.

Wow, your singular anecdote convinced me. All democrats are homophobic.

I saw what you did there.

Clarification: he’s a homophobic, possibly-gay, racist, theocrat.

Ridicule when you hear the truth,  Brilliantly stupid!

Excellent. 

Pretty bizarre citing an anti-Semitic blog as your source for an article on bigotry.

OJ Simpson was kicked out of a restaurant in Kentucky. The owner claimed that it was because OJ was profiting from the murders. No legal action was taken. I’m pretty sure OJ wasn’t white.

You’re the one doing all the “spewing” here today, buddy.

why the slam against people named “Stacey”? i know four Staceys and only one is a girl.

Aww, poor baby homophobe.

Looks like I might be the first gay commenter to stop by, but I won’t go into a whole tirade of what’s wrong with this guy. I’m guessing he thinks by banning the discussion of sexual orientation, he thinks sexual orientation will fail to exist???  Anyway, I’m proud of Martha for standing up for what she believes is the right thing to do.

If some guy says your mother’s a whore you would welcome him into your restaurant as long as he didn’t say it while he ate?

You absolutely do have the right to refuse service to anyone as long as it is not because of race, gender or any other legally protected status.   You can deny service to a black man, as long as the reason you are denying that service isn’t because he is black.

Not in the restaurant he wasn’t.

Would anyone like to enter into a friendly over-under wager on the number of months until this guy gets stopped with a high school water-polo player trying to open this guy’s fly with his mouth or returning from Europe with a rent boy? 6?  8?

Owner should put a sign in the window,”This is a restaurant,not a Bully Pulpit for Pinheads.Please come in,order up,shut up,and enjoy your meal”,Your gracious host thanks you.

Hate to tell you, but TN is not exactly the “deep south”. VA was the only state in the Confederacy that was further north. I live in SC, where we have plenty of hate-spewing politicians. I would love to see one of them get tossed out of a restaurant for it.

The only way this could have been more delicious? If someone had put a boot to his ass as he went out the door, causing him to sprawl face-first into the street (like you see in old westerns.) Bonus points if there was somehow a pile of horse manure to cushion the blow to his face.

“And STAY OUT!”

You have certainly NOT been to school in the past 20 years or you failed health. HIV/AIDS is actually primarily a heterosexual disease world wide. In the US it is a hidden disease in the heterosexual community that is spreading faster there because ignorant people think it is a gay disease. While homosexuals take precautions heterosexuals keep the disease population growing because they feel they don’t need worry about HIV. 

Yes, he was.

You are right. I had a gentleman come into my place of business one day and he started spewing cuss words left and right at me. I promptly informed him that I did not appreciate him cursing me and asked him to leave. He cursed me even more as he made his exit. He then called my corporate headquarters and filed a complaint against me, alleging that I refused him service. Corporate opened a ‘incident report’ which I had to respond to. I emailed them a reply repeating verbatim what he had said to me. Within five minutes, I received a response from corporate stating “case closed”.

I would have made him sit through my gay rights sermon while he ate his MEATBALLS.

whoops, wrong post.

He wasn’t talking about the issue IN the resrurant. He just came in to eat , the owner recognized him , and told him to get out.
Good for her.

When you read some of the ignorant homophobic things he said in an interview you have to cringe. There’s a movement here to get him out of office. Sign me up.

succintly put

He was being judged by his actions as an elected official.

Nothing I’ve read says he was saying anything in the resturant. He’s been making the local news and had said some hateful ignornat things in an interview. The owner recognized him and told him he wasn’t welcome.

I am all for this restaurant owners right to kick someone out of her restaurant ,for having views she despises. And ,I am for the right to kick gays out of your restaurant ,if you despise gays!

And you clearly missed the part where e made it obvious he was quoting Stacey.

I wouldv served him but put some santorum in his food. I would make it extra frothy.

Either way, this is the free market of ideas at work.

How certain are we he was kicked out because of his views?
Couldn’t this just be a hygiene issue. There comes a point where people who think sex with monkeys causing AIDS or thinking evolution was a big PR exercise to sell books about dinosaurs simply shouldn’t be allowed near food preparation.
For all we know the jury may still be out on “germ theory” for these people. I wouldn’t be trusting them to wipe and wash their hands.

Rand Paul would have supported the right of the restaurant to refuse service.

The Tennessee state senator is actually a member of a protected class: He’s obviously seriously mentally disabled.

He has his own website where he defended all his remarks, though he had to admit that Gaetan Dugas, a.k.a., “Patient Zero,” wasn’t a pilot, but was a flight attendant. However, his notion that Dugas contracted HIV from “screwing a monkey,” is indicative of an extremely muddled mind.  I expect he got that story from a bible thumper country preacher who got it directly from God.

Senator Campfield seems to be incapable of admitting that he is wrong about anything which he has imagined are facts.

He also thinks he shouldn’t be held liable for libel, using ignorance as his defense.

Republican state Rep. Stacey Campfield of Knoxville wants a libel
lawsuit against him dismissed because he says he didn’t know he was
repeating false information about a Democratic candidate on his blog. Campfield
wrote on his blog in 2008 that Roger Byrge, who ultimately lost the
state House election to Republican Rep. Chad Faulkner of Luttrell, had
“multiple separate drug arrests.”According to the court filing, Campfield found out later that the arrest record belonged to Byrge’s son, not the candidate. Byrge filed a $750,000 libel lawsuit against Campfield after the election.

On the other hand, he claimed legislative immunity for his blog remarks against Byrge, later dropped in the proceedings.

Unaware, apparently, of the constitutional separation of powers, Campfield also thinks it’s a good idea to set up a
committee of legislators to pick and choose which federal laws are
constitutional and presumably therefore OK to follow.

If you look at the voting records of elected Republicans vs. Democrats, with regard to such issues as DOMA or definition of classes protected from discrimination, the message is very clear.

If you look at party platforms, you’ll have to come to the same conclusions.

With less “commies” available under their beds to be scaring your children, “monsters” with a “gay agenda” should do quite as well.

Selective forms of Christianity include “Christian Reconstructionism,” which advocates for the stoning to death of adulterers as well as homosexuals.

They are the American Taliban.

Beware.

That was a “gentleman”? 

At least you handled the situation appropriately. Good for you.

She didn’t kick him out just because he doesn’t support SSM. If you read her remarks you see he crossed the line by repeating horrible homophobic lies in an interview. Rather than simply disagree, he crossed the line into harming others by spreading hateful dishonest information.

Not what he said at all. Stupidity and bigotry isn’t owned esclusively by either party.

That’s pretty funny.
In other news religious groups made it a point to praise President Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius for a recent decision on birth control to demonstrate that not all believers think the same.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/30/obama-birth-control-religious_n_1242680.html

But let’s be honest here, not all republicans are bigots, but most bigots are republicans.

But you are ok with guys who have anal sex with multiple partners?

#Redundant

i agree that people should not be judged by their race, religion, etc, BUT people most definitely can be judged by their opinions. in this case a stated opinion is no different than an action. he made a public statement as a politician that was extremely bigoted and hate filled. what would you have us to, reserve our judgements for when he curb stomps a lgbt?

please leave us whores out of this. I know- we are the only safe target of people’s bigotry anymore… but lots of us whores have children, so if someone points that out to one of those children, it might actually be the truth. Besides, did you know that the word “whore” originally meant “beloved one” before it got mucked up by the judeo- christian religions which hated women and sex?
One proud whore (retired)

That depends on who the target of bigotry is… because if the target of bigotry is prostitutes, I have found that liberals are just as bigoted as conservatives- only they pose as ‘concerned citizens,’ wanting to abolish all prostitution (female prostitutes with male clients) “for our own good.” Adult female  prostitutes are not allowed a voice in our own destiny because the bigotry presumes we are all illiterate underage drug addicts with pimps. The liberals don’t say much about the male prostitutes, because that would offend the gay community (and I say that as a bi-sexual). Bigotry disguised as  concern for our well being ends up causing as much harm to a particular group as bigotry born of hatred for certain others. I am sure that the reason the anti- gay senator is anti- gay is for the spiritual well being of the gay individual and the senator only wants that individual to be reunited with God…not much different in terms of the end results for people who are gay… or who are prostitutes, is there? And as a bi sexual atheist whore, I certainly encounter plenty of bigotry from both sides.

your broad brush concerning the south is as backwards as the scumbag you otherwise rightfully scorn…

Homosexuality is normal in over 450 species, mostly those animals with higher intellect and humans.  The medical research is clear and incontrovertible regarding the neurological basis for homosexual behavior in both women and men.  While sexual orientation and gender identity are different both arise from natural neurological differences.  The onslaught against gay marriage is no more than a feeble attempt to corrupt facts and institutionalize bigotry.  While unfortunate, you are right that America is actually a theocracy much like Iran.

If the USA were a “theocracy much like Iran” you wouldn’t be making statements like you just did. Not only would gays be arrested, jailed and likely killed so would those who champion them. Do you understand that?

Bravo Martha Boggs. I don’t trust redheads generally and Mr. Stacy does his share of proving that is correct behavior.

Are you referring to heterosexuals who like female hineys?

A very typical GOP blue-collar hick.

What is wrong with Tenn.?  They elect people like this and AL GORE.  Not much hope for them.

At least he wasn’t showing his C^$K on line to young girls….like your typical snot-nosed Dumbocrat.

Thats so funny! Santorum in his food! 

This is precisely the same thing the left-wing media tries to pin Ron Paul with by insinuating he’d want to bring back racial segregation based on his beliefs that the owners of private properties like restaurants reserved the right to decide who they’ll admit in their property.

But it seems somehow ok now according to you left-wing nuts here at Mediaite and ThinkProgress, that the Senator was kicked out and banned for life from eating at the restaurant, because of his ideological or religious beliefs.

This proves my point that liberalism is in fact a mental disorder, and I will curse you dumb-nuts next time I see you criticize Ron or Rand Paul.

So when someone tells horrible lies, restaurant owners should be able to ban them?  Well that will empty alot of restaurants especially near political offices.

If this owner wants the right to refuse service because of his views, more power to them.  But we all know that rule doesnt work when we are talking about a protected group.  That is a recipe for lawsuit if the person you disagree with happens to be gay or liberal or whatever person spewing what you consider lies.

He’s not married. Been in the legislature for numerous terms, owns a business.

I suspect he actually is what he’s complaining about.  Think Mark Foley, Larry Craig, Ed Schrock, to name a few ex-Congresspersons.

I have a lot less problems with Gore than with these theocratic, evangelistic, fundamentalist, misogynists in the TN legislature. When another “R” did something equally stupid a week or two ago, I asked a Nashville friend how someone like that could get elected.  He said they’re in a majority.  A couple of days ago still another one did something equally boneheaded.

Stacey, by the way, tried to pass a law so that any aborted fetus was given a death certificate, so that the woman could be identified in public records. So a rape victim, for instance, possibly incestuous, would have her name out there in public if she took the morning after pill.

The next time you want to describe “guys who have anal sex with multiple partners” you can just say “guys”.

of course you know that he is gay and can’t come to terms with it…

So if the targets of hateful bigotry are granted some legal protection then the hateful bigots themsleves should have the same protection?

I’m not buying into the mindset that bigotry and homphobia are equally valid ideas and should be treated as such.

all you have established is that you see yourself as the arbiter of what constitutes bigotry.  That you don’t see that other viewpoints are viewed as equally valid by their holders is not really surprising.  People of your stripe have taken to labelling any contrary belief as bigotry.  This ensures in your mind you always have the moral high ground and gives you justification for your own bigotry.  Whats most amusing is that you seem to believe that others must take your view as the given.

WTF.
I hope you didn’t pull a muscle reaching so far to make this stupidly somehow about Ron Paul.

I’d say if you’re anti-gay you’d better keep it to yourself.

Jon — you do realize that the reason they call themselves “gay” is because of the historic importance of “Gay” street, right?

Yes at some point we do have to make a judgement call about what is or isn’t bigotry. Words actually have widely accepted meanings. Contrary to your opinion I have put thought into the difference between what constitutes a valid opinion and the kind of social and religious indoctrination that produces ignorance and results in bigotry.
Unreasoning negative attitudes, toward a group of people that has no basis in facts is the definition of bigotry. . As uncomfortable as that is for so many people, that’s the reality. Our nation’s history of different groups fighting for equality is full of examples. Cloaking it in sincere religious belief may make a little less malicious but it does not change what it is. When people choose to cling to religious and social tradition to actively campaign against equality for their fellow citizens who have done nothing to harm them and pose no threat to them THAT is the definition of bigotry.

I don’t know if you’re being sincere or simply using the kind of disingenuous deflection I’ve seen become more common lately, Maybe a little of both, but I’m here to tell you, sincere or not, pretending that bigotry is just another and equally valid opinion, will not fly. FTR; Bigotry comes in different forms and degrees. It can be subtle and unconscious, or hateful and malicious. Interaction in society often forces people to look at and examine their own attitudes and they get to choose whether to acknowledge and work to change their negative attitudes or to cling to them and defend them as “my perfectly valid right to my opinion”. If you refuse to recognize the facts, or the harm those attitudes do to others, subtle or not so subtle, that’s the definition of bigotry. Like it or not.
Considering how society’s indoctrination has done grievous harm to innocent people for decades, I don’t find it very amusing.

@Cosmos Dan, You only further hammer down the fact that you would not accept for example what is considered bigotry by a Christian Conservative as such, in favor of what you believe is “accepted fact”. The idea of that existing between Right and Left went out the window along time ago.  From their perception they may view something as sin or immoral. You easily dismiss that and substitute your own secular definitions. Its clear you hold onto the righteousness of your own beliefs as fervently as any person you would accuse of “bigotry”.

The owner would be better advised to alter a common sign:

“No shirt, no shoes, no sense, no service.”

It’s a copy and paste. Just thought you should know.

You go, girl. I did not know that about the origin of the word. But, hey, they have screwed up Mary Magdelan and a whole lot of other women (figuratively). I could go on, but I will stay on topic. The Senator has published a warning, or a quote that no on can use his quotes or pics from his FB page. But, it’s public forum, so it is fair game. This guy is a sad, sad idiot. He needs to go back to school and learn something.

Why do we vote these morons into office? REally, we need to get some reality checks going.