Camp Buckwood of Indiana was topic of an article in the IndyStar Newspaper
A 50-acre camp in Indiana offers 'a safe haven for gay people'
SPEARSVILLE, Ind. Indystar.com Reporter Francesca Jarosz
-- About 40 miles south of the party like atmosphere that filled the recent Downtown Indy Pride Parade and Festival, gay identity is being celebrated in another way.
On a 50-acre campground secluded off a country road, a group of gay male campers lounge poolside, fish and eat lunches prepared in their tents and RVs. The spot, called Camp Buckwood, is among about 100 campsites nationwide that have become increasingly popular outlets for gay people to socialize with like-minded campers.
But the sentiment about its presence in rural Brown County, where neighbors bear but disapprove of the camp, highlights a reality about being gay: Subtle discrimination remains part of daily life.
That reality also helps explain the draw of places such as Buckwood. They are rare social outlets where members can hold hands and introduce their male companions as partners without fear of ridicule or harm.
"This is, we hope, a safe haven for gay people," said Darrell Gill, who owns the camp with his 16-year partner, Ben Gleason. "We just want to be able to be who we are without being discriminated against."
Local leaders in the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) community and academic experts agree it has become easier to do that in the past few years.
Brian Powell, a sociology professor at Indiana University in Bloomington who conducted a nationwide study of views on same-sex couples, said there was a large shift toward acceptance from 2003, when the first study was conducted, to the second in 2006. The change in Indiana was more dramatic than nationwide, he said.
But leaders say there's much room for improvement, and acts of bigotry, from name-calling to vandalism, are far from extinct.
"It happens all the time," said Jeff Miner, pastor of Indiana' Jesus Metropolitan Community Church, where two-thirds of the congregation is GLBT. "There's still a significant portion of the population who feel that God requires them to discriminate against us."
Tension amid tolerance
When Gill and Gleason opened the camp in 2003, there was a groundswell of protest at local meetings. Those official complaints have subsided in recent years, but among neighbors, apprehensions remain.
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