This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2006, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
A renowned travel writer has called on tourists to boycott Kanab after the city's endorsement of a "natural family" resolution, writing in his nationally syndicated column that "unbelievably, there are places in America that still attempt to denigrate certain types of people."
Arthur Frommer, the author of numerous best-selling travel guides, calls the resolution approved earlier this year by the Kanab City Council "homophobic" for its declaration of marriage between a man and woman as "ordained of God." The resolution urges homes to be open to a "full quiver of children" and also encourages young women to become "wives, homemakers and mothers" and young men to grow into "husbands, home builders and fathers."
Similar boycotts of the Sandals Resorts chain and Cayman Islands worked to change policies that discriminated against gays and lesbians, Frommer writes in a column published in The San Francisco Chronicle and other newspapers.
"If you value freedom, you may want to take a similar step because voting with your money does deliver results. The Cayman Islands, thanks to a boycott by lovers of true equality, have finally joined the wider community of the free world and Kanab may follow."
Kane County tourism director Ted Hallisey doesn't see Frommer's call for a boycott as cause for alarm. He speculates controversy over the resolution may even help tourism.
"We are getting groups that are saying they are in favor of a wholesome environment to come and vacation," he said. "They applaud [the natural family resolution] and are coming because of it."
Kanab Shilo Inn owner Peter Beck, although acknowledging he's had some cancellations, also said he's not overly concerned.
"In the long term, we have enough people coming through that it won't hurt us."
Beck and others, though, don't think it's right for tourists to punish business owners who had nothing to do with the resolution.
Harold Brain, of Kanab's Vermillion Espresso Bar and Café, blames the media for blowing the matter out of proportion.
"From what I can tell, every business in this town is abstaining from the turmoil," Brain said. "We're choosing not to get involved and hoping the whole thing will blow over."
And it will, longtime Kanab businessman Dennis Judd said.
While a few tourists may elect not to stop, "the bus tours that come through Kanab from foreign countries and America, they don't know anything about what is going on," he said.
"Some people have said that business has slacked off because of [the resolution], but I think the whole of southern Utah is having a slack of tourism because February is the lowest month of the year for travel."
Utah Division of Travel director Leigh von der Esch called the Kanab City Council's support of natural families a local issue. She compared it to the controversy over LaVerkin, another southern Utah town embroiled in controversy after it passed a resolution against the United Nations.
"The world looked upon LaVerkin as making that resolution, not Utah," she said.
Von der Esch said the Kanab resolution won't change the way the state promotes the Kanab area.
"For our part, we will continue to advertise that area of the state because of its scenic beauty and for what it affords the traveler," she said.