Onions not the only Walla Walla stink

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Joe Copeland

Joe Copeland Feb 6, 2018

Feb 6, 2018

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                <h1>Onions not the only Walla Walla stink </h1>
                <h2><p>Sen. Mike Hewitt's co-sponsorship of a bill to allow business owners to discriminate based on religious beliefs has drawn fury from what Western Washingtonians might consider an unlikely source: his hometown of Walla Walla. As a Walla Walla Union-Bulletin story reports, part of the concern came from offensive</p></h2>
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               <p>By <a href="/author/joe-copeland-crosscut-com/">Joe Copeland</a></p> 
              <p><time datetime="2025-02-04T05:00:00-08:00">Feb 6, 2018</time></p>
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            <p>Sen. Mike Hewitt's co-sponsorship of a bill to allow business owners to discriminate based on religious beliefs has drawn fury from what Western Washingtonians might consider an unlikely source: his hometown of Walla Walla. As a Walla Walla <a href="http://union-bulletin.com/news/2013/apr/30/gay-swipe-ignites-local-fury/?ref=dev.cascadepbs.org">Union-Bulletin story reports</a>, part of the concern came from offensive remarks by a staffer. Asked how gays in a rural area could get along if the sole nearby grocer or service station refused them service, the aide reportedly suggested they'd have to grow their own food. Eastern Washington tourism officials were privately treating the situation as an emergency. The paper reported widespread calls for a boycott and heavy criticism from tourism-dependent businesses.As the paper noted, it's ironic that Walla Walla is also home to profile-in-courage Republican Rep. Maureen Walsh, who cast a key vote for gay marriage last year. Double irony: Hewitt and his staff were cowardly failing to return any of the local paper's calls or emails.</p>
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Sen. Mike Hewitt's co-sponsorship of a bill to allow business owners to discriminate based on religious beliefs has drawn fury from what Western Washingtonians might consider an unlikely source: his hometown of Walla Walla. As a Walla Walla Union-Bulletin story reports, part of the concern came from offensive remarks by a staffer. Asked how gays in a rural area could get along if the sole nearby grocer or service station refused them service, the aide reportedly suggested they'd have to grow their own food. Eastern Washington tourism officials were privately treating the situation as an emergency. The paper reported widespread calls for a boycott and heavy criticism from tourism-dependent businesses.As the paper noted, it's ironic that Walla Walla is also home to profile-in-courage Republican Rep. Maureen Walsh, who cast a key vote for gay marriage last year. Double irony: Hewitt and his staff were cowardly failing to return any of the local paper's calls or emails.

By Joe Copeland

Joe Copeland is the former senior editor&nbsp;for Crosscut, where he has been an editor since 2010. Before that, he was an editorial writer and columnist for the Seattle P-I and editorial page edi