The Gainesville Times and its commercial printing company, Southland Publishing, began printing Southern Voice April 23. The company, owned by the Gannett publishing chain, also prints USA Today for areas north of Atlanta and several other publications. 

Although Times Publisher Chris Jensen told Southern Voice the decision was not motivated by the protests, "that's about as transparent as Saran Wrap," said Southern Voice Editor and Publisher Chris Crain. 

"I understand the economic pressure being put on The Gainesville Times, but it is extremely disappointing that a newspaper would surrender so easily the First Amendment freedoms that it depends upon for its own survival, and it is even more disappointing that they don't have the  courage to tell the truth about what they are doing," he said. 

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, the nationwide media watchdog group, said it is closely monitoring the situation.

"If the Times based its decision in any way on the fact that Southern Voice is a gay and lesbian newspaper, then of course, GLAAD takes great issue with that decision," said GLAAD Executive Director Joan Garry. "We continually urge all businesses to stand firm in the face of prejudice and use every opportunity that presents itself to dismantle fear and intolerance."

The Human Rights Campaign, a national gay rights lobbying organization, called the Times' decision "an appalling attempt to stifle free speech." "It's a clear-cut case of a public accommodation being denied simply because it offers services to the lesbian and gay community," said HRC  Communications Director David Smith.

Morality or money?

Soon after the Times began printing Atlanta's lesbian and gay newspaper, Free Chapel Worship Center in Gainesville and Blackshear Place Baptist Church in Flowery Branch began including announcements in their church bulletins criticizing their local paper’s involvement with Southern Voice, "a homosexual paper" filled with "homosexual material." 

"Our Gainesville Times will print the Voice's material here in Gainesville for distribution in Buckhead," reads an announcement from Blackshear's Family Concerns Ministry, which also includes contact numbers for Gainesville Times advertisers. In fact, the Times was printing the entire 25,000-copy press run of Southern Voice, not just the copies to be distributed in Buckhead, Crain said. 

The Blackshear ministry may be an affiliate of church groups called "Family Concerns" lead by arch anti-gay Nancy Schaefer, who is currently a Republican candidate for governor. "If the Times refuses to cease publication of the Homosexual Southern Voice, please consider canceling your subscription to the Times," reads another church bulletin. "They may not understand morality, but they understand money."

Free Chapel Pastor Jenetzen Franklin did not return calls from Southern Voice. Blackshear Baptist Pastor Jim Austin was out of town on a mission trip and could not return calls, church officials said. Austin told The Gainesville Times that 47 pastors met last week at L&K Cafeteria in Gainesville to organize their campaign against Southern Voice. 

"We are speaking out in opposition to a deviant lifestyle. The Bible clearly addresses the issue of homosexuality as a lifestyle," Austin said, adding that he doubted The Gainesvillle Times would print information for the Ku Klux Klan, pedophiles or a militia group.  

"They're using religion to justify discrimination, and sadly our country's history is replete with such instances where religion is used to justify discrimination against one group of people," HRC's Smith said of the analogy.

But Austin declined comment when asked by the Times reporter whether "gay and lesbian people have the legal right to print their publication," saying "this is not a rights issue, this is a moral issue."

The controversy, well-publicized in the small community an hour north of Atlanta, has already had a deep impact on the area's gay residents. Tina Vaughn, a lesbian who has lived in Gainesville for five years, called Southern Voice to say that petition drives against the paper have taken a toll on her family. Her daughter came home from school distraught, she said, after classmates who know Vaughn is gay brought copies of the petition to school "and threw them in her face."

"That shouldn't have been brought into the school. Her classmates are well aware of our home situation, and that just burns me up," she said. "My daughter is 16, and quite honestly she deals with it very well, but she says it really upset her. She thought these people were her friends." Vaughn said her girlfriend has also had to deal with co-workers printing copies of the petition at work for their churches. "It's like being stabbed in the back," she said. "Things like this make  me think we should just move to Atlanta, but why should I run away? I have as much right to be here as they do."

A business decision?

Crain said Jensen and The Gainesville Times gave two reasons unrelated to the ongoing controversy for the decision to dump Southern Voice : the upcoming change of The Times from an afternoon to a morning newspaper and a planned change in the capacity of its press equipment for USA Today. 

"Weeks before we ever switched to the Gainesville Times as our printer, we were aware of both of these plans and we had arranged very satisfactory work-arounds," Crain said. "The [Times'] change from an afternoon to a morning press time was actually even better for us, and as for the change [in USA Today], it doesn¹t even happen until next year, and we were assured that there would be no interruption of service or it would be very brief." 

Crain said that Jensen had said he would not give in to the church-organized protests. "Yesterday when I talked with him, he reassured me that the local pressure wasn't impacting our relationship," Crain said. "But he did raise both of these press equipment issues, and I was very clear with him that we had already resolved them. "In the very conversation when they informed us of their decision to drop us, his head of commercial printing confirmed to our business manager that we had resolved the operational issues, and he had no explanation for what had changed." 

HRC¹s David Smith doubted the excuses offered by the Gainesville publisher. "It seems like a ludicrous explanation that doesn't have any merit. It sounds like it's an excuse and they've bowed to pressure from special interest groups that are vehemently anti-gay," he said.

Jensen, however, insisted the move was not motivated by the churches' objections and said The Gainesville Times may consider printing Southern Voice again in the future. "Our decision was based totally on operational issues and our ability to meet the schedule in the future," Jensen said, adding that it was "unfortunate" that the decision coincided with the protests. 

"We have  arranged for another printer for Southern Voice and [we hope] sometime in the future to bid on the job again."  But in an interview days earlier in the May 16 Gainesville Times, Jensen said his company would continue printing Southern Voice despite the protests. "Aside from the legal considerations that require us to be nondiscriminatory, we also have a responsibility to our more than 230 employees," he said. "People who work at The Times and Southland Publishing depend on the jobs that we print."

Jensen said the company would allow employees who did not want to work on printing Southern Voice "or any other publication they find objectionable" to change work shifts or take vacation time. "The majority of the employees support our position," he told the Gwinnett Daily Post . "This vocal minority doesn't reflect the view of the majority of the people in Gainesville."

Southern Voice must find a new printer before June 8 and no decision had been made by press time, Crain said. "The reason we moved to Gainesville was because they aggressively pursued us as a new customer for months and they offered us more services related to the quality of the newspaper and offered us a much, much lower price. There will definitely be a financial hit wherever we end up."