When it comes to treating the gays with respect, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence just can’t seem to get it right. Ever.
The unpopular governor, who announced he will not be running for President after receiving a storm of national backlash for signing an antigay “religious freedom” bill, issued an official welcome letter for the upcoming Pride festival in Indianapolis.
But there’s a little problem.
He managed to “forget” to mention anything about the fact that Pride is an LGBT celebration. Or include anything even remotely gay. It’s just a generic copy-and-paste letter with his signature at the bottom.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
The letter reads:
Greetings,
On behalf of the people of Indiana, welcome to Indianapolis. I am confident that those of you who traveled from out of state will come to know our famous Hoosier Hospitality.
Our state’s capital city is well known as a destination for conventions, festivals, business meetings and other events. In fact, a recent USA TODAY Reader’s Choice digital poll ranked Indianapolis as the Best Convention City in the country.
Like so many other organizations who continue to use Indianapolis as their destination of choice, I am confident you will come to know a vibrant city.
During your stay, please explore the many entertainment options Indianapolis has to offer such as our museums, restaurants, theaters, historic landmarks, White River State Park, and the Indianapolis Zoo, just to name a few.
So, once again, welcome to Indiana. We hope you enjoy your stay.
Sincerely,
Mike Pence
After the whole “religious freedom” bill disaster earlier this year, the state of Indiana paid an outside PR firm $2 million (taxpayer) dollars to try and fix its badly tarnished reputation.
Nice to see that investment is paying off.
h/t: The Bilerico Project
Lucas Barszcz
This guy is an idiot!
Andie Scott
What he means is “Just bring your money”
Jerry Payney
He is such a Asshole……
Roch Lester
he’s such a phony
BJ McFrisky
To view his omission of specific wording as a slur is the epitome of hair-splitting. Would no welcome at all be preferable?
Once a target, always a target, I guess.
Kieru
This is not anti-LGBTQ+
This is just a form letter sent out to any organization holding a convention within the city. That’s why the only reference to “Pride” is in reference to where it is being sent. It’s not an “Official Welcome Letter to Pride” anymore than your Hotel’s guest booklet is an Official Pride Packet when you happen to be there on Pride Weekend.
I get that Indiana’s government has made a huge ass of itself with the ‘Religious Freedom’ law… but there is enough legitimate anti-LGBTQ+ news that we needn’t try to present this sort of non-news as something to be outraged over.
Michael Finnegan
Form letter? Really?
AtticusBennett
uh…some of you boys are revealing your own brokenness – a pride letter that explicitly DOESN’T include mentions of what pride is, nor its terribly important historical relevancy. this is hilarious, as it perfectly points out what a pathetic anti-LGBT bigot and coward he is.
the man is so pathetic he can’t even properly MENTION us. make no mistake – that this fail of a letter comes from this failure of a governor is no mere coincidence.
Kenton Monjon
He is so clueless and shares this trait with other fundies.
hrnpip
In the immortal words of Sharon Osborne: Bless him.
Curty
He didn’t even mention pride month… where does the letter say, “June is pride month”? Look he’s anti gay, he has made that clear so don’t expect him to change. The only reason language was changed on the law he signed was because of the public backlash… he’s not an ally but a foe.
AtticusBennett
In 2005, GOP Governor Mitch Daniels’ Pride celebration letter began “Dear Friends,” not, “Greetings.”
“This celebration seeks to foster understanding and acceptance of individuals without regard to gender, gender identity, race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any of the differences that too often divide us, in a state that urgently needs to confront its challenges with urgency of purpose,” Daniels wrote.
And that was a decade ago.
Kieru
@AtticusBennett: The mistake you (and others) are making is calling it a pride letter in the first place. It’s not. It’s a form letter that is sent to organizations holding a convention in the city. It doesn’t matter what the organization is or does, they get the same, generic welcome letter encouraging them to explore all the city has to offer and all that nonsense.
If you click on the source link you’ll see an actual scan of the letter which makes it being a standard form-letter all the more apparent, and all the more obvious that this isn’t newsworthy or a slight against our community.
tricky ricky
once a hoosier *sshole, always a hoosier *sshole. the man just can’t help himself.
Mark Alan McRoberts
friggin bigot
AtticusBennett
@Kieru:
the mistake you, and BJ (our resident sackless trolling wimp) are making is refusing to put two and two together.
it’s ok, though. i can see why you do that.
Giancarlo85
Bj back at his bullshit. For those of you making excuses, you need to reread this story. This isn’t a form letter. My oh my some are brain dead.
alterego1980
@Kieru: I think the idea that they send a completely generic form letter to all convention goers is presumptuous. I also think the fact that he (his office) would send a generic form letter to everyone and doesn’t take two seconds to add even a line to personalize it shows what careless dolt he is. It certainly doesn’t help prove there’s any “famous Hoosier hospitality”. It does prove though how tone deaf he continues to be toward the whole LGBT thing.
mujerado
@Kieru: Making excuses is so easy!
Kangol
I think this white hom0ph0be Pence turns up in a documentary about promoting right-wing evangelical Christianity in Africa.
Big surprise. He’s terrible, full of hate, and using Christianity as a vehicle to promote that hate.
Please get help, Mike Pence, and stop your homophobia!
Giancarlo85
@BJ McFrisky: Republicans make themselves targets because they are all rabidly antigay.
Cam
@BJ McFrisky:
And once again, BJ’s complete desperation to defend any anti-gay bigot is shown.
jmi2
but… but… there are no queers in Indiana. i think they passed a law saying there aren’t any! but you do get a free pizza if you go to the Pride Event….
mbfmark
Well if it is “just a form letter” which is certainly sounds like it is, it definitely shows his very low level on interest in the gay community and pride month – it was probably the least effort he could get away with without ruffling the feathers of his religious right backers. More like paying the monthly power bill than actually proclaiming celebration of the hard earned civil rights for the LGBT community. But then I wasn’t expecting that his own personal opinion had changed since the backlash of the “religious freedom to discriminate” legislation fiasco. Anyone under the delusion that there is an imaginary being that demands absolute obedience and dictates how humans should live on earth and lives on a constant diet of force fed hate propaganda disguised as “religion” doesn’t usually do a 180 in a few months, if ever. Maybe the voters of Indiana will try to do better then next time!
DarkZephyr
@BJ McFrisky: @Kieru: But both of you see that its just a form letter. Surely you can at least agree that he didn’t make a whole hell of a lot of effort in the wake of his scandal. Also, if he really sends a form letter like that out to ALL groups, how is that an example of this famous “Hoosier Hospitality”? I think for the rest of my life when I hear that term, I am going to become nauseous.
By the way, this is my first post of the day to Queerty and I got an error message claiming that I am posting too quickly and need to slow down.
ait10101
I lived in Indiana for a year in the oasis of Bloomington. I did an GLBT help line. It was a bit depressing, but at least I got to help some real people. A lot of hate calls. . I can’t see Indiana changing that quickly.
Jacob23
“Gov. Mike Pence Pens Pride Welcome Letter, Fails To Mention LGBT People”
– You mean he failed to mention LGB people. There’s no such thing as LGBT people.
tsginamarieva
Dear Governor (Occupant):
On behalf of everyone in the (Select a Minority Group From the Accompanying List) community, I want to thank you for your obviously sincere and heartfelt message of greeting to anyone contemplating a visit to Indiana to celebrate the 2015 ________ holiday.
Unfortunately, due to recent coverage in the national media of efforts by the Indiana Legislature and you to enact a law that would allow discrimination by private businesses against members of the (See Minority Group Listed Above) community we are advising our members not to travel to, through or near destinations in Indiana. So far, only those members who are medically required to wear protective headgear to prevent self-harm when they go outside, have expressed any interest at all in seeing the interior of the Hoosier state.
So, Governor (Occupant), while we (Select One: __ Wish to, __Want to, __Would sooner amputate our own genitals rather than) participate in this year’s ________ festivities in Indiana, the prospect that, at your behest, our members could become victims of state-sanctioned discrimination by private businesses, mean that we will have to decline your kind invitation.
We prefer, instead, to postpone any visit to Indiana until after January, 2017 when, hopefully, whomever defeats you may be more genuinely welcoming and appreciative of our community.
Sincerely,
Gina Conners
tsginamarieva
@Jacob23: Jacob, are you implying that there is no such thing as transgendered people? Fascinating. So even though it has been a recognized medical/psychiatric diagnosis since the 1880s, and that gender reassignmnt surgery has been performed since 1931, even though every major medical, psychiatric and psychological organization in the world acknowledges its existence and recognizes GRS as one of the accepted modalities of treatment – you know better?
If you have a few minutes free, you might consider googling the terms, “delusions of grandeur,” or “Luddite.”
Gina Conners
Kieru
@DarkZephyr: It really depends on the context of why the letter was sent, which I know sounds incredibly pedantic of me. But if I am correct and this is just an auto-generated letter sent out to anyone with an event well… it’s a non-issue. If it is the other case though… and the Governor specifically had this penned as a way to ‘welcome’ Pride well then yeah, it’s shady as all hell.
And that’s something I don’t see any answer to. Queerty isn’t showing the actual letter in order to emphasize their bias that this is, in fact, an insult. The Bilerico Project shows the letter in its entirety but also claims this to be a “proclamation” without providing any support, again I assume to emphasize the bias of this being read as an insult to the LGBTQ+ community.
As for “Hoosier Hospitality” well…I assume that Indianapolis is host to several thousand events (of major and minor scale) per year. It’s unrealistic to ask that a thoughtful welcome letter be provided to every event organization.
But yeah… if this turns out to just be what I think it is; auto-generated auto-signed form letter, then the LGBTQ+ media covering this as the next “-gate” disaster are just making us seem very, very, very ridiculous.
Cam
@tsginamarieva:
LOVED the form letter. lol
DarkZephyr
@tsginamarieva: Don’t listen to douche bags like Jacob. They live in their own little hate filled world. Unfortunately we have a couple like him that post to Queerty, but many of us gay boys here absolutely love our Trans brothers and sisters. Jacob’s type has slithered out from under a rock, so just consider the source. And your words to him were absolutely brilliant!
DarkZephyr
@Kieru: I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the coverage is making it out to be the next “_gate” disaster.
I think Pence has earned the scrutiny he is now constantly under by the LGBTQ community and our allies. He made his bed and now he has to lay in it. That is how I feel.
Sure this was probably just a generic form letter that he sends out to everyone. But I honestly think he could have done SO MUCH MORE in the wake of his own terrible scandal. I don’t get why he didn’t. All I can think of is that he still doesn’t want to alienate the homophobes. Sure maybe he does send that letter out to every group that visits for special occasions. BUT how many of those groups had a law enacted against them in Indiana? I think its pretty much only us. There would have been no call to make special letters for any other group. But I really think it would not have killed him to make a special effort in this case. That is just how I feel.
McShane
@tsginamarieva: Don’t forget “Troglodyte” or “Prannock”.
Jim Loar
Yes…. It’s kinda like that
Giancarlo85
@Kieru: The context? Do you really defend everything republicans do? The letter was sent in order to get people to spend money. And it wasn’t a form letter. How can people on here be so naive?
” It’s unrealistic to ask that a thoughtful welcome letter be provided to every event organization.”
Oh but this is where you’re wrong. This wasn’t some minor event. This was a major event related to a recent scandal that happened in the state that tarnished its reputation. It was intentionally left vague.
@Jacob23: Actually moron, there is no such thing as the “LGB” community. That is a term you made up. Trans people are part of the community, whether you accept it or not.
Yes Jacob suffers from severe delusions of grandeur… he thinks he speaks for the entire community and dictates who belongs in the community. Jacob also hates feminine gay men and wants them to stay out of the community. Jacob is a total douchebag.
Realitycheck
I would say, the absence of a reference to gays was done in purpose,
this governor is as anti gay as they come, and the letter was a form letter,
and it was left (in purpose) impersonal.
Appropriate references to the LGTB community should have been made.
Well idiot is as idiot does.
darian
I can’t help but feel that if it were NASCAR or a NCAA tournament he would have included something like like “welcome fans of…” And go on to talk about the history indiana has had in those activities. If you think for one second he accidentally didn’t mention the LGBT community then your as delusional as he is.
Clark35
Oh well. Nobody wants to go to flyover country or Indiana anyway for vacation, to travel, or live there.
billywonka
Poor Pence – upstairs an apartment for rent. But pretty typical for A clueless republican’t.
aliengod
@Kieru: You’re correct in your analysis. This is simply a form letter.
NoCagada
INDIANA…I have spent a lot of time there. A hell hole with crappy weather and chain smoking morbidly obese bigots everywhere. NOTHING pretty about the place. I pity anybody living there and if I grew up gay there, I would find ANY way to get out.
BlueDude
This douche’s legacy will be something like “Biggest Tu®d in the Punchbowl”.
Donald Zeger
Idiot
misterhollywood
I wish I could say I’m shocked but with this turkey I’m not. He’s politically stupid and ignorant as well. Gee, do you think he will try to “fix” this too? Dummy.
Joe Harris
At Hanover, he always thought he was smarter than everyone else. He was such a patronizing dick; some things never change.
schwma
This guy is SUCH A TWAT.
Jacob23
@tsginamarieva: Trans people most certainly do exist. They are the trans community. They are potential friends and allies of the LGB community. But this effort to make us all pretend that we are one is a lot like a religion. Well, I don’t believe in Thor, Zeus, or LGBT.
tsginamarieva
@Jacob23: In the best of all worlds, Jacob, I would agree with you. When you look clinically at gender identity and sexual orientation, the two characteristics really have very little in common. Moreover, the construct of a discrete unified, “LGBTQ” community was as much or moreso occasioned by people and interests outside of those groups as within. But, in the real world, the conjoining of the different groups is a same-sex, multi-gender marriage of convenience to serve the greater good of all concerned.
Gina
Giancarlo85
@Jacob23: You are a total liar. There is no such thing as LGB. Stop making up acronyms. And LGBTQQI is real and a fact. You can accept reality or live in bullshit fantasy.
And you hate other members of the community. Not only do you hate trans people and refuse to understand and learn more about them, you hate feminine gay men too. You are a self absorbed holier than thou narcissist.
GayEGO
@Andie Scott: Right on! With a GOP it usually is about money and of course there is some stupidity about keeping church and state separate and what discrimination means.
Dennis Richards
Don’t see the problem. – Suppose it had been a convention of Catholic priests, Legionnaires,athletes …. anything ….. same old,same old from a politician.
Atomicrob
Dear Governor Pence,
The best action you can take to help bolster Indiana’s faltering image is to resign after you apologize to the LGBT community for being a totally clueless homophobe. You can send my two million dollar fee to the LGBT fund…