Indiana Residents Rue Damage to State’s Welcoming Reputation
Q:How did “Hoosier Hospitality” become “Hoosier Homophobia?”
A:The people of Indiana put Zealots in charge.
“I just don’t like that they say we’re intolerant,” she said Thursday from behind a counter stocked with pastel Easter cookies and red velvet cupcakes. “Because that’s not who we are.”
Though the people of Indiana have been starkly divided over the law and its possible effect on gay residents, there is a more general agreement here that the raging debate — fanned by the large corporations that have objected to the law, national interest groups and out-of-town news media — has tarnished the state’s reputation for magnanimity and reflexive friendliness.
” ‘Hoosier hospitality’ has been a phrase that I’ve heard my whole life,” Stephanie Dolan, a journalist, wrote recently in NUVO Newsweekly, an Indianapolis alternative paper. “It’s hokey and it’s corny, and — if you’re easily annoyed like me — it’s a bit off-putting in its sappiness. But there was never any mistaking its sincerity.”
More: Indiana Residents Rue Damage to State’s Welcoming Reputation