Gays Brave Censure, Plan to Open Resort

Jimmy Cates, and the man he loves, have become the scandal of his hometown.

For three years, residents were content to gossip about Cates and Jim Turner. But that all changed when they learned of plans to turn Cates’ hilltop chateau into a men-only bed-and-breakfast.

The gay couple have become the subject of sermons, harassment and death threats.

Now, Cates said he can never go back--to his church, to friends he grew up with or even to his family.

“They’re part of the persecution against me now, everybody but my real mother,” the 39-year-old Cates said of his estrangement from his devout Methodist father, his four brothers and two sisters. Cates’ parents were separated years ago, and the mother lives in nearby Lewisburg.

Gay-bashing graffiti has been spray-painted on the asphalt ribbon snaking a quarter mile uphill toward Cates’ house. Effigies have been hanged from the oaks and maples along the private roadside. Violent expletives are left on the answering machine. Queries about Stone Mountain Estate are met with sullenness by many in this town of tidy, brick storefronts and Victorian houses.

“They’ve had their suspicions all along about me,” said Cates, a cabinetmaker who was married four times and has two daughters, ages 11 and 18. He said he reconciled himself to his homosexuality in 1989.

“It would have been OK if we’d kept everything quiet, up here in the trees and out of sight and not brought in any more of ‘our kind,’ ” said Turner, 34, who met Cates at a gay bar in Nashville, Tenn., and moved in with him in 1989.

Despite threats left on their phone-answering machine that men armed with deer rifles and grenades would attack the 10-acre resort, the couple say they plan to open the bed-and-breakfast as soon as they obtain a state license and health permit.

State police are investigating the threats and the American Civil Liberties Union has offered legal aid.

A security guard questions all who approach Stone Mountain. In early October, a teen-ager was arrested and accused of trying to run down a guard on the property. Now, at least one other guard prowls the woods just out of sight.

Cates’ father said his son was a good-hearted child who grew up in the church.

“We still love him, but . . . , “ J. G. Cates said, his voice trailing off. “He goes his way and I go mine. He was a part of this family until he chose this lifestyle.”

Family members and friends pray that Cates will renounce his homosexuality and reconcile with them. “In something like this, God will take care of everything,” his father said.

Radio talks shows have produced a stream of people angry that gay lifestyles are being practiced in Russellville. Some callers say children will be at risk; others say they worry the town of 8,500 residents will become a vacation spot for homosexuals.

“They’re overcome with homophobia,” Turner said. “It’s like they think we’re going to overcome this town with sin and God will destroy it. It’s the same thing they did with black people, with Jews.”

Caught in the middle are city and county officials who say they cannot block the inn’s opening and a largely silent majority who say what consenting adults do in private is no one else’s business.

The resort is outside the city limits and Logan County has rejected rural zoning.

“I’d say the biggest majority of people are not wanting it but there’s only probably two or three people who violently oppose it,” said Mayor Ken Smith. “My personal view is this is immoral, but they have their rights.”

Russellville Church of Christ youth minister Steve Tyree said that for all their condemnations of homosexuality, local clergymen try not to condemn homosexuals.

“If they came to our church, I think we would let them in, but we would hope and pray they would seek and find God’s truth,” he said. “I won’t pretend there wouldn’t be some people who would express some shock.”