Until Kansas passed a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, the official Web site for Atwood promoted free land the northwest Kansas town was offering developers.

But in recent days, atwoodkansas.com said nothing about eco-devo. Instead, it was an angry screed against the Kansas vote, and the altered Web site drew national attention.

“Once upon a time, it was a very nice Web site,” City Clerk Janet Stice said Tuesday afternoon. Now, she said, “it’s not doing us a lot of good.”

But there was little that Atwood, population 1,279, could do about it.

The Web address had been created and is still owned by Daniel Lippold, a gay former resident now living in California. He redesigned the Web site, posting his open letter to vent his anger, after learning Rawlins County voters backed the amendment 984 to 130.

“I knew (the amendment) was going to pass in Kansas,” Lippold told the Journal-World on Tuesday. “I thought since everybody in my hometown knew who I was … they wouldn’t vote for it.”

Lippold wrote he was “disappointed and heartbroken” by the city’s vote.

“I am sad to say that I will no longer consider Atwood my hometown,” he wrote. “The next time someone makes a joke about Kansans being rednecks, hypocrites, etc., I will not defend it.”

Links to the altered site raced around the Web. Influential gay blogger Andrew Sullivan — former editor of The New Republic — featured it Monday on his Web site.

Open letter to Atwood

The open letter lets “his neighbors know what it’s like to be declared an enemy of society,” Sullivan wrote, “even while you have long been one of its most solid citizens.”

Lippold said he was selling the site back to Atwood officials. And after speaking with the Journal-World Tuesday, Lippold replaced his “open letter” with a message saying that a new Atwood site was “coming soon.”

He seemed ambivalent about the attention Tuesday.

“I don’t want their image tarnished. That was not my intention. I don’t want people to think negatively about my hometown,” Lippold said, but added: “I’ll never live there, and I’m not going to promote it anymore.”