PARENTS, PLEASE BE ADVISED: If you are a parent, it is your responsibility to keep any age-restricted content from being displayed to your children or wards. Furthermore, you represent and warrant that you will not allow any minor access to this site or services. This website should only be accessed if you are at least 18 years old or of legal age to view such material in your local jurisdiction, whichever is greater. 'You're from the Villages? Why would you live there?' I think there are a lot of misconceptions about this place.You are about to enter a website that contains explicit material (pornography). "We know what people in Orlando and Tampa think,'' O'Donnell said. Flynn said 17,000 registered Democrats live here, which is roughly 30 percent of the voting population.Īs the Villages continues to build and grow, Garvin said younger and more progressive residents are becoming more and more common.
While gay residents threw a protest-free celebration in a town square after the recent Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriages, there were a number of hate-filled comments on local message boards afterward.Īnd Joseph Flynn, the Villages Democratic Club director, says those who sport liberal bumper stickers still run the risk of being accosted.īut Flynn and Rainbow members say the image of the Villages being overrun by the tea party is exaggerated and outdated. Just don't go thinking the rainbow flag will soon be flying at Villages entrances. "You're always going to have someone complaining, but it's a low minority of people who might pick on others for being a different color, or different race or different whatever.'' "We come from all over the country, from every walk of life,'' said Ed Sullivan, president of the Villages Republican Club of Sumter County. To hear residents tell it, the esprit de corps in the Villages transcends other differences.
Are you kidding? It's made for lesbians.'' "The guys are more interested in fine dining and going to theaters and shows, so they gravitate toward bigger cities,'' said Wendy O'Donnell, who started the Rainbow club with her partner Peggy Garvin. (It's also why lesbians say they far outnumber gay men here.) Turns out, the amenities that brought in scores of Midwesterners and other retirees are the same things that attracted so many lesbians. The answers are sensible, almost disappointingly so. Why has this barely caused a blip in a community where a Democratic official says congressional leader Debbie Wasserman-Schultz was once spat at? How did the gay community feel comfortable enough to throw weekly dance parties at a country club?ģ. What would possess so many gays to live in a rabidly right-wing community?Ģ. This leads to increasingly incredulous questions:ġ. The Rainbow club has no head count - years of discrimination have made the gay community leery of lists - but emails reach close to 2,000. Widely known as a critical voting bloc for right-wing candidates, it is also, less conspicuously, home to a thriving gay community. The Villages, located between Ocala and Orlando, is a self-contained playground to more than 100,000 mostly white, mostly retired, mostly Republican residents. Call it inexplicable, or call it encouraging, the folks of the Rainbow Family & Friends club call it home.