Neff: Gay news through the looking glass

Perhaps you’ve heard of the new fad at churches, fight nights — heavyweight bouts intended to bring more young people into the house of the Lord.

But have you heard of porn night at a church?

In mid-February, Uganda pastor Martin Ssempa hosted a porn show at a church service in Kampala to rally support for a bill that elevates homosexuality to a capital offense punishable, in some cases, by death.

Several hundred people watched Ssempa’s pornographic slideshow about gay sex. The Guardian newspaper quoted Ssempa as saying that he wanted people to know “about what homosexuals do” because “in Africa, what you do in your bedroom affects our clan, it affects our tribe, it affects our nation.”

Porn at church.

I began waiting for word that at a subsequent Bible study class Ssempa led the men in the group in a circle jerk to prove some point. As I scanned headlines for notice of such a news report, I came across a few other stories — closer to home — of interest:

• The Washington Post ombudsman Andrew Alexander reported that the newspaper received a flood of complaints, including some subscription cancelations, after publishing a page one photograph of two men kissing the day the District of Columbia first issued marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

One reader wrote The Post an e-mail: “That kind of stuff makes normal people want to throw up. People have kids who are being exposed to this crap. I will be glad when your rag goes out of business. Real men marry women.”

• Florida state Rep. Stephen Precourt recently introduced legislation to provide tax incentives to lure filmmakers to the Sunshine State.

Precourt, however, wants to apply a restriction — the incentives would only go for entertainment industry projects with “family friendly” themes that do not contain sex, nudity, smoking, profanity or LGBT characters.

Precourt said he wanted Florida to be known for making “Disney movies for kids and all that stuff.”

• The school board in Itawamba County, Miss., canceled a high school senior prom rather than allow a lesbian couple to attend.

The board’s statement said the April 2 dance was canceled “due to the distractions to the educational process caused by recent events.”

The local mayor said, “I think the community as a whole is probably in support of the school district.”

Wouldn’t you like to give some folks a shove through the looking-glass into a wonderland where everyone gets mushy over the lesbian kiss, gets hot over the gay-sex scene and goes “yuck” and “ick” when a man and woman embrace?

In that wonderland, 99.9 percent of romance stories on TV, in film and on the bookshelves would be about LGBT people and Janis Joplin wouldn’t have pretended the Bobbie McGee she was singing about was a dude.

Down with straight supremacy.

Down with this attitude that everyone, gay and straight, wants to sit through 120-minutes of Hollywood dribble about the boy who romances the girl or the girl who tricks the boy, but only gays find gay-themed movies relevant or entertaining.

Down with this attitude that gay and lesbian youth must sit in the bleachers and cheer on their hetero peers as they dance away their senior prom.

Down with this attitude that a same-sex kiss is acceptable only when it’s played for comedy, and that we all should swoon over the deeply romantic gesture of a man and a woman exchanging tongue.

And down with this ridiculous attitude that gay porn proves a case for sentencing gays to death. I mean really, what would a presumably straight congregation think about watching “Deep Throat” during a church service?

At one point during his pornographic slide presentation, Ssempa pointed out to his church audience, “This one is eating another man’s anus.”

I’m pretty sure that if I looked hard enough, I could find an image of a man and a woman engaged in this act.

In fact, before I go on, I’ll search Google to see.…

I’m back, yes, I can find such images — no shortage of them.

You know what? I didn’t enjoy looking at those images — probably even straight supremacists would say “ick” or “yuck” at the photos. I wouldn’t want to see those images during a church service, but an act worthy of a death sentence?

Porn at church.

We don’t need to tumble through the looking-glass or into wonderland to encounter a mad hatter.

Charlie Crist Senate Run May Face Conservative Revolt

Politico:

The expected by Florida Gov. Charlie Crist that he’s running for the Senate would seem to be a rare bit of good news for beleaguered Republicans.

But while Crist is a brand-name recruit with sky-high approval ratings and bipartisan appeal, his path to keeping the seat of retiring Sen. Mel Martinez in GOP hands has at least one significant roadblock: Sunshine State conservatives. See Charlie Crist Senate Run May Face Conservative Revolt * Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual