Tuesday, January 10, 2012
LGBT Everyone calm down about Atlanta's fall from grace on The Advocate's Gayest Cities list
Posted by Bobby Feingold @senorbobby on Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 11:49 AM
- The Advocate
I've never been to Salt Lake City, and while I've recently learned "Everyone's a Mormon," I just can't imagine that the capital of Utah is a gay utopia on par with Los Angeles or Chicago. Cultural wasteland of America Orlando came in at number two, and you'll never guess who beat Atlanta at number eight: Knoxville, Tenn. Listen, Knoxville is not suitable for anyone of any sexual orientation.
But it's Atlanta's accompanying blurb that really rubbed people the wrong way, specifically one preposterous line.
We won’t fault you for trying to forget Real Housewife Kim Zolciak’s dip into the lesbian pool — but don’t blame Atlanta if everyone there wants to sample the fun LGBTs have all over town. Lesbian businesses thrive in East Atlanta, and gay clubs go off in Mechanicsville. People coming to Atlanta like to party, and the GayTL delivers with Black Gay Pride in September and Atlanta Pride in October, and the black gay clubs’ second-busiest weekend of the year surrounds the observance of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday in January. Holla!
"Gay clubs go off in Mechanicsville?" Okay, we get that it might be confusing to outsiders now that Atlanta's LGBT community isn't contained to the gay ghetto of Midtown, but Mechanicsville? Really? If a gay friend was visiting Atlanta for the first time, I would never send them to that part of town. Hell, I personally wouldn't send anyone gay, straight, or otherwise to Mechanicsville.
The AJC says The Advocate's "new, less scientific methodology is likely to blame for the jumbled rankings" that "gives smaller cities a chance to compete." ProjectQ is downright enraged, counting how many words are wasted on Real Housewife Kim Zolciak and calling the list "stupid" three times.
But Atlanta loved this flawed methodology when it named our city as the best. Local publications are now denouncing the list, saying such frivolous rankings don't matter. Of course they don't matter to the losers. They're important for the winners, in this case smaller cities that could really use the recognition and support. Atlanta had its day in the sun. Now it's time to give some other backwoods gayborhood its moment to shine.
Comments (4)
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Just like the lists that Forbes comes out with every couple of days, the criteria used by The Advocate is pretty much random and shouldn't be taken seriously. I suspect they tweaked it until they could get SLC into the number one slot just to annoy the Mormons.
Salt Lake City? WTF?
Knoxville is a great town.
Like for a het in a gay town is great. Improves the odds with all those players removed from the field. Thanks guys. I'll raise at toast at Backstreet. Oh yeah... dammit! Stupid politicians. Do you reckon the pleasure police shutting down all-night clubs had anything to do with this?
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