Oh, Noes! Teh Gays Is Oppressing Us!
Over at Clown Hall, Kristen Fyfe—who is apparently training to become the next Ann Coulter—has a column that can be summarized as
Oh, no! Those filthy, hellbound faggots with their contagious gay cooties are displaying intolerance and denying good Christians basic human rights by parodying a religious picture! Will our oppression never end?! <clutches pearls>
Before you complain that that’s an unfair characterization of what she said, read the first paragraph of the article:
On September 30, a Sunday – the Lord’s Day in the Christian church – San Francisco will host the Folsom Street Fair, perhaps the most hedonistic event held in public in America. The fair is the San Francisco homosexual community’s annual celebration of promiscuity, sadomasochism and debauchery. The ad for this year’s fair mocks Da Vinci’s The Last Supper, with a half-naked beefcake Christ and disciples bedecked in all manner of leather and chains. The bread and wine of The Last Supper are replaced with sex toys. Many Christian groups have expressed outrage.
First of all, she appears to have her facts wrong: as far as I can tell, the Folsom Street Fair is not a gay event, but a gender- and orientation-neutral event for people who are into leather, BDSM, and suchlike. So blaming the “homosexual community” is flat-out wrong.
Secondly, on the poster, above the top right corner of the flag, I was surprised to see Thing. I may never see The Addams Family the same way again.
She later quotes Concerned Women for America:
According to Concerned Women for America, “The most unimaginable and vile acts of debauchery are commonplace during the fair. Senator Larry Craig was arrested and driven out of the Senate for allegedly soliciting public ‘gay’ sex, yet during this event the city of San Francisco suspends the law and allows ‘gay’ men and women to parade the streets fully nude, many having sex – even group orgies – in broad daylight, while taxpayer-funded police officers look on and do absolutely nothing.”
I feel cheated: I’ve looked through the Folsom photo gallery, and didn’t see any fully nude people, and not a single group orgy. Not even a discreet little back-alley blow job. A Google image search fared no better. Shame on you, Concerned Women for America, for getting my hopes up for nothing!
Oh, and did they fail to notice that the to-do over Larry Craig had more to do with his hypocrisy, attempted adultery, and the fact that he tried to pick up a man by tapping his foot in a public bathroom, rather than the more respectable route of wine and dancing at a romantic night club. Can you really blame the media for thinking that “Senator revealed as adulterous hypocrite” is a more newsworthy headline than “Leather people are into leather”?
I suspect that what rightards really hate about events like these is that they prevent them from pretending that the world is neatly divided into dominant men who like sex with women, and submissive women who put up with sex with men; that the only acceptable sexual act is man-on-top, penis-in-vagina, for proceation only, followed by lying back and watching NASCAR. And, of course, no dancing!
But if it’s any consolation, I’m sure there’ll be a body piercer at the Folsom Street Festival with the equipment and expertise to staple Fyfe’s hand to her forehead.
(Update: See also The Carpetbagger’s take on this.)
AFAIK, the Folsom Street Fair started out as a gay event and has since widened its scope to include anyone interested. But the parody is great; I love the composition and the sense of dynamic interaction between the folks at the table that you get. (I hadn’t seen it before; thanks for the pointer!)
Raven:
If you look around the web site, there are other entries in the poster competition. Some of them are pretty good.
If you’re going to paraphrase these people, there’s a rule you’re forgetting. The word “gay” has to be in scare quotes. Always. You can’t believe the “gay” people about anything. That includes their definition of the word “gay” or their claims that the word describes them. I thought you knew that.
You mean, just like you can’t trust atheists when they say “atheist” doesn’t mean someone who knows that there’s no god? But all atheists are gay and all gays are atheists (to say nothing of the evolutionary biologists), so it all ties together.
So this whole thread is full of gay, but it’s not necessarily “gay”? Can we talk about the “religion” of Concerned Women for America?
It’s not a religion!* It’s a Relationship With Christ™!
* Except for tax purposes, of course
** Also for tax purposes.
No public nudity? No public sex? Watch this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiITVqGAcYI
abc123:
Can you point out the nudity and sex? I confess I didn’t watch the whole thing, but there didn’t seem to be any nudity or sex in the first ten minutes or so.