May 05, 2006

Journalist's Obsession With Gay Pride Foe Gets Out Of Hand

gv.jpgGina Vivinetto, a journalist with the St. Petersburg Times has resigned after admitting "to being involved with" a MySpace page designed to appear to be written by Hillsborough County Commissioner Ronda Storms.
Last year, Commissioner Storms introduced a measure two weeks before St. Petersburg's gay pride parade that forbade neighboring Hillsborough County government from acknowledging, promoting or participating in gay pride events. It passed 5-1.

Print-screen caps from the cache of the MySpace page are here and here (followed by numerous vulgar messages); while Ms. Vivinetto's blog is here.

Ms. Vivinetto, pop music critic for the Times, had been recently working on a documentary where homosexuals explained their sexuality to children, although it's unclear if she finished.

UPDATE:
Per her comment on this blog, posting as "Bombshell Gallery," Ms. Vivinetto's MySpace comments relate mainly to Commissioner Storm's underwear and their scent. How embarrassing for the St. Petersburg Times.
In all fairness, she was kind enough to extend the commissioner an invitation to an art gallery, and only the most philistine among us wouldn't enjoy gazing upon works of art in the company of "HOT, YOUNG LESBIANS!!" Indeed, I believe most of my readers would stampede to get in.

***
Also blogging:
Patterico weighs in briefly.

Posted by floridacracker at May 5, 2006 03:53 AM

   



Comments

The cache got dumped, sadly.

Posted by: Mr. Bingley at May 5, 2006 07:36 AM

I still have it up on my screen. I'll see what I can do.

I put screen-caps up. Even on the Wayback Machine it's blocked by nofollows.

Posted by: Donnah at May 5, 2006 07:41 AM

Ms. Vivinetto has interesting hair.

Is St. Petersburg the San Francisco of Florida? That is, does it attract a gay community (like Key West)? Or is all of Florida developing gay pride?

Just wondering...

Posted by: Baron Bodissey at May 5, 2006 10:53 AM

St. Pete is in Pinellas County. Across the bay is Tampa in Hillsborough. So close and yet so far. The Hillsborough commission didn't care for what it saw in Pinellas and moved to preclude it their own environs. The focus of gay ire was on one commissioner, and the results you see.

Posted by: Donnah at May 5, 2006 11:00 AM

why is it that it seems like homosexual people
always want to explain themselves to some kid...

I woulda started crying if somebody had done that to me..and ran for my Mama's skirt...no doubt.

Posted by: csason at May 5, 2006 07:51 PM

And no doubt homosexual parents would be annoyed at a hetero taking class time to educate kids about the habits of the (preferred) heterosexual lifestyle. Not appropriate. It's one thing to be gay, it's another thing to be a negative influence on children.

Posted by: Vermont Neighbor at May 6, 2006 03:42 PM

well the way I see it is..being homosexual by nature precludes parenting, excepting that slim
group who changed in midstream (typically the few
of that genre that I have come to know are still
much too involved in personal confusion to have
ANY valued opinion on child rearing...sad)and as a general issue parent, weilding all my heterosexual powers...and fathering a whole slew of youngins in the process, It just occurred to me that the only time you hear somebody screaming about 'showing' or 'teaching' some heterosexual parent's kid something, sure enough, there is some gay stuff goin on somewhere.

Posted by: csason at May 6, 2006 11:24 PM

Thanks for the Knucklehead award. May I ask where you receive your information to decide who you give your awards to? All the newspapers I read say I merely posted comments (three, since January) on the fake Ronda Storms profile on myspace. You are crediting me with creating the fake Ronda profile and that's an honor I don't deserve.
I posted three comments on Ronda's phony profile under my art gallery's moniker (that means "name") and I got fired.
Also, the documentary I was intending to make where people of DIFFERENT sexualities explain who they are (not just homosexuals, as you erroneously printed)was not intended for children but adults and "my blog" which as you can plainly see is a group blog that has not been touched since October of last year, clearly explains that.
I'm glad your site is not the mainstream media. So much misinformation in one piece is frightening.

Posted by: gina vivinetto at May 7, 2006 12:49 AM

I don't give knucklehead awards, Gina. You're confusing me with another blog -- in other words, you're misinformed.
You're thinking of a derivative blog whose first name is also 'Florida.'

The credit given you is from the article cited. I haven't seen any other articles as I had no plans to update. I will, however, change the post to reflect the exact quote of the article, and I thank you for the correction.

Regarding your documentary, your blog (with every post stamped with your name, btw) states:

"The film, featuring members of the local GLBT community, is in direct repsonse to Ronda Storms' statement that she "doesn't want to have to explain to her children what homosexuality is."

The short film will feature several gay men, lesbians and transgendered people explaining in the most simplisitic terms, who and what they are."

Since the film is a "direct response" to the Storms' quote and "Each person will talk directly to the camera as if they were engaging a child in converstation, keeping the dialogue, playful, lively and gentle," one would be hard-pressed to say that its goal was to teach adults about heterosexuality.

But why quibble?

Your job loss was just a reality check that you were in the wrong profession. Consider this a golden opportunity for a bright and happy future in another field of endeavor (I've had lots of them); one that doesn't require journalistic integrity and where it won't matter what a potential future employer finds when he Googles your name. When a newspaper editor makes a public apology in his paper because of your actions, it's not a good thing.

Best of luck to you.

BTW- I enjoy fellow-St. Pete Timeser Steve Spears' "Stuck in the 80's" blog very much. Good stuff.

Posted by: Donnah at May 7, 2006 12:54 AM

It's the weekend..let's have some fun.

Posted by: csason at May 7, 2006 07:23 AM

I'm still trying to figure out why my comments here didn't show up before, and if it's because they were offensive. I let stuff like that bug me. Maybe I just hit preview and not post or something.

Posted by: Dave Munger at May 8, 2006 07:20 PM

Lets see Ronda and the rest of her buddies try to censor this.

Posted by: Brandon Pride at May 9, 2006 03:22 PM

I have a funny feeling they might not NOT try to censor that. Call me crazy.

Posted by: Dave Munger at May 11, 2006 03:48 PM