Retreat but not defeat. (Bias).

Alan Winkler's dream of a rural gay utopia ended abruptly October 7, when he arrived at the 75-acre site of the Blue Fox, a retreat for gay men he'd been building in Grundy County, Tenn. The front gate to the resort, which Winkler had planned to open next spring, had been uprooted, and the main building had been reduced to rubble. In addition, the water main had been sabotaged, and mutilated carcasses of dogs lay scattered across the grounds. "I expected some phone calls, [but] I never expected to be outright attacked," said Winkler.

The viciousness of the vandalism reminded many of Camp Sister Spirit, a lesbian sanctuary in rural Mississippi that had been attacked in a similar fashion shortly before it opened in 1993. But while Camp Sister Spirit eventually made peace with its neighbors--after mediation from the U.S. Department of Justice at the behest of then-attorney general Janet Reno--and still flourishes today, the Blue Fox won't have such a happy ending. Winkler, who lives in North Carolina, says he has dropped plans to open the Tennessee retreat, though he is working with authorities to find the vandals and see that they are prosecuted.

"There really needs to be some sort of a spotlight shone on these people," he said. "They're of the mind that we're out here in the boondocks and therefore they can do what they please," he said. "I'm sure that there are some perfectly wonderful people over there, [but] this little pocket of hate is what I want to show the world."