On Monday a large segment of Nassau's springtime tourists, women who treasure same-sex affection, were greeted by a disgruntled coalition of enraged clergy leading their flocks of angry believers in protest.

The believers, up to 1,000 strong, marched only a block from where 800 Lesbians were docked aboard a cruise ship, The Seabreeze. They chanted "We don't want sissies," "Go Home," and "God made woman for man!"

"That last slogan—'woman for man'-- probably didn't go down too well on a lesbian cruise ship," reflected Jeanette Prather, a tour guide.

Most of the lesbian passengers opted to steer clear of Nassau's shopping district, which is what the "Christians"—hoping to block lesbian access to shops— had intended. Local Nassau businessmen and women were hardly amused, however, by the "Christians" antics.

A few angry lesbian women, resenting that they were being made victims of "religiously-inspired" expulsions, confronted the crowd. Five, however, returned to the ship as the "Christians" turned on them in frightening fury. Three of the women, however, forged ahead into town, chased by a group of six believers who wished to demonstrate to the world the transforming power vouchsafed by their "holy" doctrines.

The Bahamas incident marks the second time the vacation plans aboard a cruise ship have been thwarted simply because it carried large numbers of individuals and couples openly espousing the joys of same-sex love.

"We predicted this kind of behavior might spread," said Bob Kunst, veteran Miami Beach activist and Oral Majority organizer of a nationwide Cayman Islands boycott. Kunst had just returned from Key West where, he says, enthusiasm for a boycott among locals is rising. "The Keys have everything to gain," Kunst told GayToday.

In fact, mainland Florida too is catering to an ever-growing gay tourist population. A Washington Post writer, Donald P. Baker, found his recent news report on Ft. Lauderdale reprinted in U.S. papers as distant geographically as The Dallas Morning News.

The report recalls singer Connie Francis' long-ago hit, Where the Boys Are and tells how Ft. Lauderdale has now become a Mecca not for rowdy college students but for gay couples. "For several years, the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention and Visitors Bureau has deliberately courted gay tourists," writes Baker.

Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham of the Bahamas was the recipient of the Oral Majority's petition which praised him for taking a principled and enlightened stand that opposed the anti-gay crusading of the "Christian" mobs. "We appreciate your support for the rights of gays, bisexuals and heterosexuals…given the anti-gay hysteria," said the petition.

The Prime minister was reminded that anti-gay sentiment was being whipped up under the banner of fundamentalist religiosity not only in the Bahamas and the infamous Cayman Islands but in Montserrat and Anguilla, not to mention the U.S. state of Maine.

Oral Majority director Kunst compared the Bahamas uprisings to the sexual hysterics and witch hunts that now, under the auspices of Special Investigator Kenneth Starr and the Republican party, have helped paralyze the U.S. capitol as well as other major urban centers. "These people are dangerous," he counseled, "they use gays for a hidden agenda…and the gay community nationwide is reacting Big Time to our efforts to boycott the Caymans…"

"Only last week," Kunst reminded the Prime Minister, a Reverend Gernicki, who led 1,000 protesters against gays in Miami, was himself indicted for raping a 15-year old girl."

Kunst, who had helped lead forces against Anita Bryant in the late 1970s, recalled how Anita had been, until now, the last anti-gay demagogue to use the word "Save" in her "Save Our Children" campaign.

Today, by using the threat of same sex affections to stir up undue concerns, Kunst charges that "certain avaricious members of the clergy with their 'Save the Bahamas' slogan act as if the presence of same-sex love constitutes the Bahamas biggest problem. They must know that there are more important matters facing the Bahamas' citizenry."

Kunst says he plans to take his Oral Majority boycott of the Caymans to 10 cities during the next seven weeks. To the Bahamas' Prime Minister Ingraham, he said, "You Sir speak for the majority (of live-and-let-live Bahamians) and together we can make an enormous difference."

Vaughn Miller, pastor of Nassau's Resurrection Tabernacle Church, and a leader in the crusade to ban gay and lesbian cruise ships as well as to toughen sodomy laws, complained to the Miami Herald: "They kiss publicly and they hold hands publicly. They are in our streets and on our beaches. We are against any group, not just homosexuals, who are against our Christian principles."

"We'll only spend our money," Bob Kunst retorted, "where kissing and holding hands isn't a crime. Its hard to think why these things are anti-Christian. Didn't Jesus kiss men?"