MARIETTA, Ga. (AP) -- The county commission that two weeks ago
condemned homosexuality voted to eliminate funds for the arts at the
urging of a commissioner who warned that the arts are helping further a
"gay agenda."

   "The smokescreen of censorship was not and is not the issue before
us. The issue is how tax dollars will be spent," Chairman Bill Byrne
said before the Cobb County Commission voted 5-0 Tuesday to take
$110,000 meant for county arts programs in 1994 and spend it on law
enforcement.

   The vote came two weeks after the commission declared that
homosexuality is incompatible with community standards.

   Commissioner Gordon Wysong said he backed both proposals because he
felt a "gay agenda" creeping into the affluent, politically
conservative Atlanta suburb.

   He cited residents' complaints about a production at the Theatre in
the Square of the acclaimed off-Broadway play "Lips Together, Teeth
Apart," which discusses AIDS. But theater patrons voted it the season's
best play, and Wysong admits he never saw it.

   Theatre in the Square founders Palmer Wells and Michael Horne said
they would consider moving the 225-seat theater out of Cobb County if
their $41,000-a-year grant was eliminated.

   "I think this is a sad day for Cobb County," Wells told the
commission. "You're failing the people of this county in denying arts
support."

   At a crowded, raucous public hearing Tuesday, resident Diane Conley
said the public would "think we're a bunch of hicks with no culture, a
bunch of uneducated rednecks," if arts funds were eliminated.

   More than 200 people filled the meeting room for the pre-vote
hearing, while dozens more watched on TV monitors outside in the town
square.

   But resident Jack Gibbs drew a standing ovation when he condemned
the "precipitous decline" of today's arts.

   "It's as if everyone in the arts community has taken a loyalty oath:
Thou shalt not call trash trash and sleaze sleaze," Gibbs said.

   Gay rights groups promised during an impromptu rally Tuesday night
to press for the restoration of arts fund and withdrawal of the
resolution condemning the gay lifestyle.

   "Don't let the Cobb County Commission fool you with their lies. This
is not about taxation," said Jeff Graham, a leader of the gay rights
group ACT UP. "This is about American culture. This is an issue of
basic human rights."

   Cobb County is an affluent, conservative suburban area where one
city, Kennesaw, has adopted a law requiring that each home have a gun.

   But Commissioner Bill Cooper said the anti-gay resolution had
nothing to do with cutting funding for the arts.

   "The gay issue and the issue of arts funding are separate and
distinct," he said. "To tie the two together is to do a disservice to
both."