Really? T‑Shirts?

A local com­mu­ni­ty con­tro­ver­sy was start­ed over a T‑shirt. Yes, a T‑shirt! 

Winchester-Clark County Tourism ordered a local citizen’s ’70s-inspired T‑shirt design that reads, “Winchester Is For Everyone.” The design uses rain­bow col­ors on the shirt.  My under­stand­ing is that as soon as the shirts appeared for sale by Winchester-Clark County Tourism, the uproar from some reli­gious peo­ple began. 

There were rants con­demn­ing the LGBTQ+ com­mu­ni­ty with cher­ry-picked vers­es from the Bible, tak­en out of con­text, used to jus­ti­fy big­otry and hatred. These indi­vid­u­als also post­ed the names and per­son­al phone num­bers of the tourism direc­tor and oth­er mem­bers of their board — to pro­mote harass­ment, perhaps?

Nonetheless, when the shirts went on sale Monday morn­ing, they were sold out by Tuesday morn­ing, indi­cat­ing that many peo­ple like them.  Another local cit­i­zen has also had T‑shirts print­ed that read, “Winchester Proud,” using rain­bow col­ors against a white back­ground.  These had to be reordered after sell­ing out initially. 

Somehow, T‑shirts were then tied to the local Beer Cheese Festival held annu­al­ly on the sec­ond Saturday in June.  The fes­ti­val, which has grown every year, wel­comes many out-of-town vis­i­tors and show­cas­es our com­mu­ni­ty.  This fam­i­ly-friend­ly fes­ti­val is enjoyed by all age groups and has some­thing for every­one.  The plan­ning and vol­un­teer hours involved to make this event hap­pen demon­strate how peo­ple in Winchester and Clark County work togeth­er for a com­mon purpose.

If all this ener­gy spent on shirts was not enough, at the June 6^th City Commission meet­ing, a local pas­tor spoke out against the T‑shirts based on his reli­gious beliefs. After com­ments by two oth­er peo­ple, this was fol­lowed by a com­mis­sion­er com­ment­ing about how the 5% far right and 5% far left should not “be catered to because, basi­cal­ly, they’re ignorant.” 

It is par­tic­u­lar­ly dis­turb­ing to me when Christianity is used as a weapon to jus­ti­fy dis­crim­i­na­tion, mar­gin­al­iza­tion, judg­ing, and divid­ing peo­ple.  I am aware that Jesus Christ gave two com­mand­ments: love God and love your neigh­bor.  Those are the pri­ma­ry teach­ings of Christ in my under­stand­ing and prac­tice, with “neigh­bor” mean­ing all your neighbors. 

If some­one doesn’t like a T‑shirt, they should­n’t buy it or wear it.  If they don’t like a local event or fes­ti­val, they should­n’t attend it. 

Last year it was flags — this year, it’s T‑shirts.  Really?