Gay and lesbian films, television shows, plays, and books are no strangers to controversy.

Over the years, protestors have greeted numerous productions of The Laramie Project (based on the murder of Matthew Shepherd) with virulently anti-gay signs.

The gay characters in NBC's recently canceled The Book of Daniel's played no small role in incurring the wrath of the far right groups that boycotted, and eventually drove away, corporate sponsors of the show.

Censorship of gay books in libraries takes place regularly across the country with GLBT books either being banned outright or removed from public view. Indeed, the GLBT community is all too familiar with the desire of some factions of the religious right to remove anything gay and lesbian.

And those efforts aren't letting up.

Gay owned bookstore picketed by Christian activists
Philip Rafshoon is a success story. As owner of the Outwrite Bookstore & Coffeehouse in the heart of midtown Atlanta for 12 years running, Rafshoon has created not only a comfortable place to read, relax and shop, but has also become something of a focal point for Atlanta 's gay and lesbian community.

Perhaps this visibility--and Outwrite's proximity to the Atlanta Pride parade--is what brought a group of anti-gay Christian activists to picket in front of his store.

According to Rafshoon, on three successive Saturdays before, during, and after the June 24 Pride celebration, 15 to 20 people congregated in front of the Piedmont Avenue establishment, holding up signs citing Old Testament Bible passages and shouting hateful messages through a bullhorn.

For a few hours each day, they would chant things like “Homosexuality is sick, wicked and an abomination before God,” Rafshoon said. He said the group was headed by Pastor Billy Ball from the Faith Baptist Church of Primrose, Georgia.

Ball has picketed before. According to the blog notesfromatlanta, in March 2004, during the debate over a proposed Georgia gay marriage bill, Ball appeared on the steps of the state capital bearing the sign "I now pronounce you pervert and pervert."

Rusty Tanton, a Mostly ITP show host with the Georgia Podcast Network, interviewed Ball during the Atlanta Pride festival.

“We're out here preaching the gospel and warning the sodomites that are part of this gathering that if they don't repent they are going to hell,” Ball told Tanton. “We have an objection to [homosexuality] because God has an exception to it. It's an abomination in the sight of God. It's the most accepted tolerated sin in America right now, I think, besides abortion, and the church is way too quiet about it.

“We came out here because we love these people enough to warn them and rebuke them, Ball added. “The word of God clearly spells out that sodomy, man with man, woman with woman, is an abomination before God.”

Ball did not return messages left at his home and church Saturday.

Rafshoon thinks he was targeted because of his bookstore's visibility and success: “I think it's because we're the most prominent [GLBT bookstore] in the city,” he said. “It's pretty much known that we are the center of the gay lesbian community in Atlanta.”

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