There is some agriculture, but most people are employed either by prisons or schools some commute to the Gulf Coast to work in tourism. Holmes County, on the Georgia line, has about 20,000 residents. 'We are a small, rural district in the Bible Belt with strong Christian beliefs and feel like homosexuality is wrong,' said Steve Griffin, Holmes County's school superintendent, who keeps a Bible on his desk and framed Scriptures on his office walls. Davis was demoted, and school employees must now go through sensitivity training.ĭespite all that, many in this conservative panhandle community still wonder what, exactly, Davis did wrong. The American Civil Liberties Union successfully sued the district on behalf of a girl who protested against the principal, David Davis, and a federal judge reprimanded Davis for conducting a 'witch hunt' against gays. And he asked dozens of students whether they were gay or associated with gay students. He suspended some of her friends who expressed their outrage by wearing gay pride T-shirts and buttons at Ponce de Leon High School, according to court records. When a high school senior told her principal that students were taunting her for being a lesbian, he told her homosexuality is wrong, outed her to her parents, and ordered her to stay away from children.
