Attorney and businessman Bob Flournoy captured the attention of LGBTQ Nation following an article previously published on The Stream about his wedding venue. LGBTQ Nation picked up the story from Journey magazine and published it on September 6. LGBTQ Nation then requested a statement from Bob about the ad he’d placed in Journey stating that he would not rent his wedding venue to gays, lesbians or transgenders.

In an interview with The Stream, Flournoy said that it has never been about not renting to gays or lesbians (he does not check the sexual orientation of those who book his bed and breakfast). His focus is about protecting the sanctity of marriage as well as his Constitutional right not to be forced to participate in something he believes is detrimental to the family and contrary to his religious beliefs.

Further,Flournoy said that freedom of speech and freedom of religion are at stake and he (and other Christians) must take a stand or face the loss of First Amendment rights. “Christians must … wake up to the fact that America is losing liberties once taken for granted. If we don’t fight they are going to take it away from us.”

In his response letter to LGBTQ Nation, Flournoy said in part,

I am not fighting against homosexuals or transgenders … [m]y issue is to support marriage between one man and one woman and I refuse to participate in any other kind of marriage. So, go do your thing somewhere else and I won’t be calling you terrible things or threatening you and your family as so many of your readers have done to me. … I will thank you for disagreeing respectfully with my position on same-sex marriage and I will respect yours. I will not host a same-sex marriage at my place and I will not demand that you promote my constitutional rights in your Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer Nation publication. Is that fair enough?

He went on to state that under Texas law he was not required to host same-sex marriages, would not expect to lose in a court of law and that bringing a suit against him would just “set a bad precedent for your cause.”

The response to the initial story was enormous. Flournoy said that the day the article was published on LGBTQ Nation his website had over 1,000 hits and continued to get that number for three days. More frightening, he received hundreds of vicious texts and emails from LGBTQ activists and over 2,000 malicious attempts to hack his wedding venue website. On the third day after the story was published, Flournoy wrote his response letter, which was published in a separate story — in full — on LGBTQ Nation. Interestingly, the vicious responses and hacking attempts virtually stopped; and hits on his website declined steadily, reaching 34 hits by September 14.

Flournoy expressed bewilderment about the rapidly declining numbers on his website and wondered aloud what it was about the letter that stopped the attacks and large number of hits. “I was able to speak directly to them [LGBTQ people] in their magazine,” he said. “Maybe nobody’s spoken directly to them about this.” His response letter was — as expected from an attorney — full of references to Constitutional rights and Texas law. He speculated that perhaps they couldn’t argue with truth, but then conceded that the entire event — to have an opportunity to speak to the gay and lesbian community directly — was a “God thing.”