That became especially apparent last month when a debate erupted over whether or not Colorado Springs’ City Council should waive some fees in support of a cultural festival the city’s Diversity Forum is planning to hold in August. According to an article in the Colorado Springs Independent, some officials objected to the routine request because the event will include gay and lesbian groups.

When Diversity Forum representatives first approached the city earlier this year, council member Darryl Glenn reportedly said, “I’ll be blunt—what I see happening is an expansion of the definition of marriage. And a display of an event like that, that's a political issue."

Two of Glenn’s colleagues on the council—Margaret Radford and Tom Gallagher—expressed similar discomfort the event. “When a large portion of this community does not support gay and lesbian viewpoints, I don’t see us putting tax dollars into supporting that direction,” said Radford, according to the Colorado Springs Business Journal.

For Jay Patel, a member of the Diversity Forum, the situation acted as the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. "We thought, 'Enough is enough,"' Patel told the Denver Post, "and members of our group showed up in force."

That apparently did the trick, as the council eventually voted unanimously to support the diversity fair—though not before some of them expressed "reservations about certain people who might want to ‘advance their agenda,’” according to the Denver Post.

That change of heart was a hopeful sign of things to come for Patel and other members of the Diversity Forum, though it seems some of the city’s business leaders believe a more thorough turnaround on the part of the City Council is going to be needed for Colorado Springs’ image to be fully rehabilitated.

“This kind of crap makes news nationally, just because it happens in Colorado Springs,” one wary business owner told the Colorado Springs Business Journal recently. “And don’t think that companies who might want to relocate or people who might want to move here and start a company don’t hear about it.”

“I have to apologize for Colorado Springs every day,” another business owner added. “We have such an awful national image.”

Until next time!