Last week, Orange Beach Mayor Tony Kennon pledged his support for country singer Jason Aldean, embroiled in controversy for his "Try That In A Small Town" hit single.
The song's video was recently pulled from CMT's lineup, but Kennon said in the wake of the controversy, Aldean would be welcomed in Orange Beach.
"I love the song," he said in comments given to 1819 News. "I listened to it and found nothing offensive to it. As a matter of fact, I would wear it as a badge of honor."
Kennon followed up on those remarks during an interview with Mobile radio FM Talk 106.5.
The outspoken mayor of Orange Beach talked about the threat of cancel culture in modern society and vowed that his city would be a stronghold against it as long as he was mayor.
"As long as I'm mayor, you won't ever see pronouns before names," he said. "You won't ever see CRT, nor will you see transsexual bathrooms or any of that. That just won't happen as long as I'm mayor. Now, somebody may come after me, I don't know."
"People talk about that we live in a bubble here," Kennon added. "I say, 'Yeah, we do,' but there's pressures on the outside of that bubble. The only thing that equalizes that pressure is the strength and the pressure from within that bubble to counter that. You just sort of extrapolate that throughout the country. At some point, there's got to be a counterpressure to the cancel culture. And metaphorically, a punch in the nose is all that bullies know — maybe not metaphorically, maybe literally."
"The point is, they're going to run over us," he continued. "It is up to us what happens. It is totally up to us."
Jeff Poor is the editor in chief of 1819 News and host of "The Jeff Poor Show," heard Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-noon on Mobile's FM Talk 106.5. To connect or comment, email jeff.poor@1819News.com or follow him on Twitter @jeff_poor.
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