Has society taken political correctness too far? Now, a Georgia cattle farmer was declined by the US Department of Agriculture when he applied for a special interstate transport license just because his address included an “offensive” word. Although it was part of his address, He was informed that the USDA had banned his town’s name in addition to being offended by it.
Georgia farmer Gene King applied for a special ID through the USDA called a ‘Premises Number.’ With this, he would be able to purchase and sell cattle across state lines. After he finished the form, he requested to check on his status. King said, “She said it’s kicking it out saying that’s an offensive word and won’t accept your application.”
However, as when he was just trying to transport livestock across state borders, Gene King was shocked to find that the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) had denied his application for a special interstate transport license because his address contained “a banned word.”
“No one’s got a problem coming to Gay, Georgia,” he said, “I don’t have a problem living in Gay, Georgia. But, the USDA’s got a problem with Gay, Georgia.”
In 1882, Gay, Georgia, was established. The name, which was modeled after William F. Gay, was incorporated in 1907. The town, which is an hour south of Atlanta, has roughly 100 residents. They host the Cotton Pickin Festival, a well-liked event that was formerly known as the “Gay Fair,” twice a year.
King was devastated after learning the reason for his rejected application. He said, “No one’s got a problem coming to Gay, Georgia. I don’t have a problem living in Gay, Georgia. But the USDA’s got a problem with Gay, Georgia.” But King admitted that this name can be confusing when used in a typical conversation.
For example:
- “I have gay friends.”
- “Here in Gay, Georgia?”
- “No, not in Gay, Georgia.”
- “You have gay friends outside of Gay.”
- “Outside of Gay, yeah.”
The cattle farmer would rather not be referred to as a Gay cowboy despite the fact that the town of Gay has a Gay water tower, Gay Town Hall, and Gay memorial street sign. Of course, you should avoid using the town name on any applications you submit to the government. In fact, Gene King received an email from the USDA offering a solution.
The USDA emailed back with a workaround that might probably work. They decided to change Gene’s hometown on the application, from “Gay” to “Bay. ” However, the cattle farmer did not agree with this. He said, “And I said no, I don’t want to submit it as Bay, Georgia.
I want to submit it as Gay, Georgia because that’s where I live. And she said do you want a number or not. ”
King said he told the government to work over the phone and then the USDA manually changed his city back to Gay.
King said, “I said, ma’am. This is ridiculous.”
The USDA reportedly manually changed his city after issuing his number. Concerning how the issue came to be, the agency claimed that a list of phrases with “bad connotations” was compiled out of concern that someone may try to undermine a previous system for registering animal IDs.
The USDA pledged in its statement that an upcoming upgrade would guarantee “this will no longer be an issue.”
“The premises identification allocator was originally developed in the early 2000s for the National Animal Identification System, using the technology available at the time. The program was very contentious and IT developers were concerned about the possibility of people attempting to create “bad” premises IDs to prove there was a problem with the program or its IT systems. They created a database of words with bad connotations that would not be allowed in the system.”
There is a happy ending to the story of this gay cattle rancher. The Premises Number and the out-of-state cows were obtained by Gene. And the federal government never took away his pride, no matter what they said. He said, “My name is Gene King. I live here in Gay, Ga. That’s G-A-Y, not B-A-Y.”
Watch the video report below for more details:
Sources: Taphaps, Out, Fox5Atlanta