Several people in the audience applauded, while commissioners laughed. The minutes of the meeting read, “Motion was made by Commissioner Fugate which was duly seconded by Commissioner Raper that pertaining to homosexual marriages that is going on across our country, that those kinds of people can not live in Rhea County or abide in Rhea County, if they are caught in Rhea County living together as such, that they be tried for crimes against nature. That county attorney, Gary Fritts, prepare a resolution and submit to our senator and representative and see if they will prepare a bill for that to go in the criminal code and word it the way it should be worded and bring the resolution back to the next commission meeting.”

The commissioners later claimed they thought they were voting for something else.

The commission rescinded the incendiary resolution two days later, but the news had spread around the world. It didn't help that Dayton was also the location of the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial.

“It’s already tarnished the county’s image,” said County Mayor Billy Ray Patton, who has no vote on Commission resolutions. “For the first three or four days, we probably received 1,000 phone calls here.... This is not what Rhea County is all about. Rhea County is not a hateful county, by no means.”

Doug Landreth has reason to think otherwise. When he logged onto his computer one morning last year in Navarre, Fla., a small community near Fort Walton Beach, he was startled to see something about Rhea County on Advocate.com. Landreth grew up in Rhea County, and most of his family still lives there.

“I was like, ‘Oh, my God.’ I knew the climate surrounding Rhea County, but the fact that they would take it to such an extreme I found very hostile. I became physically ill.”

Landreth knew at a very young age that he was gay. When he went to college, he slowly began the process of coming out. When he was 30, he told his parents. “I never felt there’d be any personal shame. I went to counseling to learn how to deal with it if I was disowned by my family. I didn’t want to do anything to my family to cause them problems. It wasn’t until I was partnered and bought a home and my parents were coming down for a visit that I came out. I didn’t have the strength for myself but I didn’t want to put my partner in a separate bedroom and pretend.”

Landreth has worked as a media director for a Metropolitan Community Church (a Christian church with a special outreach to gay and transgendered people) and is a founder of CoastalPRIDE of Northwest Florida. With a thick goatee and a muscular build, Landreth doesn’t look like he’s easily pushed around. His hometown government’s action upset him, but he resolved to fight it. In a letter sent to every commissioner, he promised to move back and sue the county if it didn’t rescind the action.

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