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Since Monday there has been a steady flow of organized disruptive “Christian” forces into Central Florida.  At the same time, up to 100,000 gay males and lesbians are expected to swell through Walt Disney World, Orange County’s premiere entertainment site.  The fact that persons attracted to their own gender have been welcomed by a major American institution has incensed the Religious Right giving rise to what they claim will be non-violent anti-gay protests and civil disobedience. 

At a clinic on Tuesday morning Operation Rescue’s leader Flip Benham publicly berated police because they had dared to protect veteran gay activist Bob Kunst. “Flip just flipped out and was arrested,” gloated Kunst, “shortly after he’d called me a Sodomite.”  

The reason for the anti-gay religious fanatic’s arrest, it is said, was that he’d violated court injunctions requiring him to hold Operation Rescue protests at appropriate distances so as not to block entryways to any free choice clinics. 

Kunst continued to infuriate Operation Rescue troops at one clinic by chanting “God is Gay!”  The airwaves were overburdened, he said, as “Christian” music blared over speakers permeating the clinic and the surrounding area. 

Friday, June 5  

A Gay Day 1998 Hospitality Suite opens this morning (Friday, June 6) between 10 a.m. and 9 p.m. at the Hyatt Orlando, 6375 West Irlo Bronson Memorial Highway in Kissimmee. 

Gay and lesbians tourists may visit Disney-MGM Studios or Seaworld during the day. 

Also on Friday, Beachball will be played between 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. at Disney’s Typhoon Lagoon. 

There will be a tea-dance/ private dinner at Arabian Nights, 7 to 11:30 p.m., 6225 West Irlo Bronson Memorial Highway, Kissimmee.  

In downtown Orlando the Mr. & Miss Gay Day USA Contest with $15,000 in prizes will be held between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. at Church Street Station Presidential Ballroom, 129 West Church Street, Orlando. 

Saturday, June 6   

Saturday (June 6) large groups of gay men and lesbians will wend their way to the Magic Kingdom. A typical entourage which might originate from anywhere in the USA, according to Oral Majority reports, will be like that traveling from Key West in two vans and carrying a total of 24 travelers.  

The contingent will leave Atlantic Shores Hotel in Key West Saturday at 8 a.m. and their first stop will be the famed News Cafe, 800 Ocean Drive (South Beach) where they will dine between noon to 1 p.m., says Kunst.   Signatures needed for the Oral Majority’s tourist’s boycott of the Cayman Islands will be collected on South Beach. 

“We now have over 9000 signatures protesting the Cayman government’s bigotry,” the Oral Majority leader exults, “and only from 10 communities so far. However with 100,000+ in Orlando for ‘Gay Days at Disney’ we’ll be there to ask those masses to help the Oral Majority boycott by signing.”  

Also on Saturday, the Oral Majority is sponsoring a demonstration at 10 a.m. at State Roads 192 and 535. This intersection in Kissimmee is en route to Disney. “We’ll demand 'justice' our 'rights',” Kunst promises, and 'welcome' all ,to "Gay Days". 

Kunst says that “the opposition is expected to be out in force protesting against us and they’re going to attempt to get into Disney to go after us.  The Oral Majority president exchanged words Thursday with one of Orlando’s best known anti-gay clerics, John Butler Book.  

“Book and I debated twice 21 years ago during the hostilities that flared during the Anita Bryant period,” Kunst told GayToday.  “This time I told him right off  to his face what he is really doing, making gays and lesbians look good because he’s a nerd and that he’s actually stirring up public sympathy on our side  He really got rattled when I told him that its obvious the fanatical Christians are losing.  And, of course, I informed him that God is Gay.” 

Orlando’s talk radio, in fact, was filled with unhappy commentary from concerned Christian believers, many of whom felt that the city’s invasion by Operation Rescue troops represents an embarrassing slap in the face for everything about which Jesus taught.  “Those protesters against the gays are the un-Christians—the anti-Christ,” ran a common theme on many call-in shows.  

A GayToday staffer told a reporter from Gannett’s Florida Today that the anti-gay strategy adopted by Operation Rescue follows months-long  news stories about religious fanatics bombing, shooting and murdering at women’s clinics. Now, as a result, the anti-abortion zealots are finding fewer adherents and their funds have dwindled. “So they’re trying another big scam, playing the anti-homo scare card for all its worth. Hoping the frighten believers with a lurid vision of homosexual takeovers.  It’s a stupid strategy. It won’t work. ” 

Gay Day at Disney’s Magic Kingdom will begin Saturday (June 6)  9 a.m. to Midnight.  On Saturday the fourth annual Block Party, 9 p.m. to 3 a.m. will take place at The Club at Firestone, 578 North Orange Avenue, Orlando. 

The Ru Paul Dance Party will begin at midnight Saturday, at the House of Blues, Downtown Disney’s West Side. 

The official “After Gay Day Party” –dubbed Mighty Party 2, will take place between 10: p.m. and 3 a.m. inside Disney’s MGM Studios.  At another Disney locale, A Night of Pleasure has been planned between 7 p.m. and 2 a.m. at Disney’s Pleasure Island, Downtown Disney. 

Related links:   
See highlights from the opening of Disney's Animal Kingdom