Berry, Wisconsin is about as small town as you can get. It is located just outside of Madison and has a population less than 1,200 people. But Berry is definitely not the kind of small town Jason Aldean dreamt of when he wrote that bigoted song.
Town Supervisor Travis Austin had rented out the town hall to hold a Rural Pride Forum and invited local and state government officials to attend to discuss LGBTQ+ issues that occur in a rural setting. Austin did everything by the book in getting this set up. On the day of the event, a few small Pride flags were stuck in the ground outside of the town hall.
Less than a half hour after the event began, snowflake and homophobic Town Chair Duane Haag, called the Dane County Sheriff’s Office, pulled on the authority of his office and demanded that they send law enforcement to handle this crime spree of “illegally” place Pride flags. Deputies did respond and left shortly thereafter, since no crimes had actually been committed except in Haag’s fevered imagination.
End of the incident, right?
Well, not for Haag. The town’s citizens are pretty pissed that he would abuse the power of his office for his own petty bigotry, as this audio clip demonstrates and in this report from the Daily Cardinal:
Residents of the Town of Berry expressed their frustration at the police presence at the Pride event.
“People were visibly upset. Enforcement is scary to some people,” said Penni Klein, a Dane County resident at the board meeting. “They’re not used to it.”
Some residents accused Haag of exploiting his authority as town chairperson to inappropriately call for law enforcement.
“You know that the police have to come whether it’s a non-emergency call or a 911 call. That’s a gross abuse of the system,” Susan Felson, a 47-year resident of the Town of Berry, said during the meeting. “These officers were not able at that time to respond to a true emergency — a fire, an accident, someone with a heart attack. They were here.”
Austin is also planning on bring up the issue of ethics at the next town meeting in August.
There is no telling what might come out of this, but the town of Berry, the state of Wisconsin and the entire country would be much better off with more people like Austin in office and fewer people like Haag.
