Camp Rort Sgatuck | Gay Camp Associatn

Contents:

• GAY MICHIGAN TRAVEL GUI
• HOW THE LARGT GAY RORT THE MIDWT IS MICHIGAN'S "BIBLE BELT"
• THE GAY BAR
• GAY DETRO
• MOVG TO GAY MICHIGAN? THG TO KNOW BEFORE RELOTG HERE AS AN LGBT PERSON.

GAY MICHIGAN TRAVEL GUI

Text 'GAYTRAVEL' to 1-800-GAY-TRAVEL (1-800-429-8728). — Travel Guis wh a Gay Perspective.

Featured Gay Friendly Hotel Michigan. Gay Michigan. Gay travelers n fd a good time the gay muni of Douglas and Sgatuck.

Although Sgatuck-Douglas ss what’s known to be the Bible belt of the state, ’s also home to a vatn statn to a large gay muny.

HOW THE LARGT GAY RORT THE MIDWT IS MICHIGAN'S "BIBLE BELT"

Michigan Rad’s Ey Fox reports on how Sgatuck-Douglas beme the gay rort of the Midwt. Scher and his partner n a Bed and Breakfast his spare time, Schrr has been workg on a project wh the Sgatuck-Douglas Historil Society to tell the story of how the gay muny me to be. As turns out, gay men and women have been g to Sgatuck-Douglas for a long time.

Scher says that’s where the gay muny gathered for more than a century. We don’t know if those naked men were necsarily gay, but Schrr says the gay populatn did start to take off around 1910 when the Art Instute of Chigo opened up a summer program Sgatuck, lled Ox-Bow.

“A lot of people who attend Ox-Bow, a lot of the creative typ maybe were gay men and women, ” Schrr Ox-Bow was tablished, the artsy muny and Chigo urbani were travelg to Sgatuck-Douglas and more gay people started hangg out at the dun. At that time Grand Rapids wasn’t a safe place for gay people.

THE GAY BAR

“If you were known to be gay or somethg like that the police would harass you and want you to give them the nam of anyone you knew that happened to be gay, ” Jenngs says.

”Jenngs would pe to Sgatuck on the weekends to bartend at the facto gay bar town, lled The Blue Tempo, unr the guise that he was makg more money for the fay. Scher says back when Carl Jenngs was bartendg at The Blue Tempo, there was actually a law that said that you uld not serve alhol to homosexuals.

“Around two the morng, when the bars would let out, there was a ltle hot dog stand on the rner, about a block or block and half away, and que often there would be nontatns between gay persons and what I would refer to as maybe some redneck trouble makers, ” Jenngs Blue Tempo burned down 1969. There wasn’t a gay bar town for another after that.

GAY DETRO

By the early 1980s Jenngs had e out to his fay and he and his new partner wanted to start up a gay rort and bar the the Sgatuck Cy Council wouldn’t grant them a liquor license. The Dun Rort is now touted as the largt gay rort the Midwt, wh around 80 rooms. There were bomb threats and young men would try to break r wdshields the parkg lot wh baseball Jenngs says the gay populatn is much more accepted and tegrated to the muny the n see that at play at Douglas’s Friday night waterg hole—a rtrant lled Everyday People.

MOVG TO GAY MICHIGAN? THG TO KNOW BEFORE RELOTG HERE AS AN LGBT PERSON.

He says there’s always a large mix of people that de at his rtrant, but says there’s also a large gay crowd that shows up on Friday nights. “Friday nights have been dubbed, not by me but by a lot of our guts, they dub as Fri-GAY nights, ” Balmer a room of about 50 people, about a dozen guys are gathered the middle, huggg and greetg one of those men is Bobby Carlson.

Like the first gay wave a century earlier, they have a place where they n pe om the cy, relax and feel like they belong.