Florida Agenda

KNOXVILLE, TN   – Tennessee state Sen. Stacey Campfield  received more than brunch on Sunday at The Bistro at Bijou restaurant in Knoxville, when the restaurant’s owner refused to serve him because she considers his beliefs to be homophobic.

Martha Boggs, the owner of the restaurant—located, coincidentally, on Gay Street—had heard a radio interview with Campfield in which the lawmaker made what she considered to be disparaging remarks about homosexuality.

Campfield, who recently sponsored legislation requiring elementary and middle schools to teach only heterosexually-based sex education, told ABC News that he was taken completely by surprise by Boggs’ actions. “We were just standing there waiting for a table, and this woman came up to me saying ‘I’m not serving you, I’m not serving you, you hate gay people,’” Campfield said. “‘I said ma’am I’m not a homophobe,’ and I offered to send her links from the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] Web site to back up what I said about homosexuality being a dangerous lifestyle, and being a risky behavior.”

The CDC links that Campfield referred to include statistics from 2008 data which indicate that 54 percent of HIV cases diagnosed that year were from same sex contact among males, while 32 percent was contracted from heterosexual sexual contact. The data did not address female homosexual sex.

Campfield, however, was not as thorough during the radio interview, claiming that it is “virtually impossible” to contract HIV or AIDS through heterosexual behavior.

“My understanding is that it is virtually — not completely, but virtually — impossible to contract AIDS through heterosexual sex,” Campfield said.

Boggs said she has no regrets, despite some local backlash. “It was one of those spur of the moment things. I didn’t think about what I was doing, but all I did was look at his smug face, and told myself I do not want to serve him. His comments have gone from stupid to dangerous and I think someone needs to stand up to him,” Boggs told ABC News. “I think Mr. Campfield is a bully, so I just stood up to a bully.”

MORRISTOWN, TN – A transgender woman was arrested for indecent exposure in the Morristown, Tennessee driver’s license office parking lot after she took her shirt off to fight for equal rights.

According to WATE-TV, Andrea Jones said she is a woman but the state won’t change her sex from male to female on her driver’s license. Jones, a transgender woman, had a partial sex change and says that was all the Social Security office needed to switch her paperwork from male to female. However, she says the Tennessee Department of Safety informed her she’d need more proof to make the same change on her driver’s license.

According to the police report, when Jones’ request was denied, she decided to make a statement by taking her shirt off in the parking lot. Jones contends that as a “he,” he had t

he right to show his breasts in public.

In response to her arrest, the Tennessee Department of Safety said they’ll change the sex on a license “if an applicant presents a doctor’s statement indicating that a full sex change has occurred and the procedure is complete.”

MADISONVILLE, TN – The students at Sequoyah High School in Madisonville, Tennessee, have reached a roadblock in their attempt to start a Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) chapter at their school.

WATE channel 6 in Knoxville reported that officials determined that the students had not gone through the usual channels to start a club. However, the students starting the organization claim they are not a club but a support group where they can get together and discuss their problems. Members of the group also said that they followed the instructions given to them by the principal of the school, including having a signed petition completed.