On New Year’s Day, two guys married on a float in the Rose Parade in Pasadena, Calif. How nice for them. And now everybody’s moved on, right?
Ha, ha. I doubt it. Considering how worked up antigay conservatives got about this whole thing before it happened, I suspect they aren’t about to let it go.
Case in point: Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality, a group dedicated to propagating lies about LGBT people, criticized the Tournament of Roses for “celebrating homosexual perversion in the storied parade watched by countless children.”
According to the Los Angeles Times, the couple married on the AIDS Healthcare Foundation’s float, titled “Living the Dream: Love Is the Best Protection.” The float “was created to celebrate victories in 2013 for the same-sex marriage movement, including Supreme Court decisions upholding the repeal of California’s Proposition 8 and striking down a key part of the Defense of Marriage Act.”
AIDS Healthcare Foundation’s Ged Kenslea told the L.A. Times that “the organization supports legally sanctioning same-sex marriage because it encourages more stable relationships as well as behavior that will prevent the spread of HIV.”
“We believe that marriage saves lives,” he said.
Well, no wonder LaBarbera is so pissed off. Gays marrying each other? That’s totally at odds with the depiction of gays as perverted destroyers of civilization and haters of God that LaBarbera prefers.
“The ‘gay wedding’ float is symbolic of America’s ongoing moral disintegration: In the name of ‘tolerance,’ ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusion,’ we proudly parade our sin down our streets — defying our Creator and aggressively corrupting the minds and souls of future generations,” LaBarbera wrote in a Dec. 30 press release.
Notice how he puts “tolerance,” “diversity,” and “inclusion” in scare quotes, as if they’re either dirty words or not real things.
LaBarbera has no patience for anyone who disagrees with him, especially if those people claim to be Christians.
“The unbiblical ‘progressive evangelical’ and liberal Catholic movement to affirm unrepentant homosexuals as ‘Christians’ serves Satan’s agenda, not God’s,” he writes.
In other words, if you’re not an antigay Christian or, worse, if you’re actually gay, you’re no Christian at all. You might as well carve an upside-down cross into your forehead.
“Substitute another sexual sin for ‘gay’ and see if it makes sense: Would the Rose Parade allow a live incestuous ‘union’ atop one of its floats?” LaBarbera wonders.
Huh. I’m gonna go with no. I’m also going to point out that being gay isn’t the same thing as being incestuous, which I shouldn’t have to point out, but LaBarbera is a very confused man.
LaBarbera really can’t get over the fact that kids are going to see this big gay float.
“The homosexual ‘marriage’ movement corrupts impressionable children by teaching them that wrong is right,” LaBarbera continues, “and that erotic ‘love’ between two people of the same sex is ‘equal’ to natural marital love as ordained by God. Jesus Christ had strong words for anyone who promotes sin and corrupts the souls of innocent children.
Yeah, Jesus had a lot of strong words to say about a lot of things. But gays getting married wasn’t one of them.
Kids aren’t going to choose to be gay by seeing the “Living the Dream” float in the Rose Parade. It’s far more likely that impressionable children will choose to be football players, a game that will likely leave many of them with brain damage. Which makes me wonder how many times LaBarbera’s been hit in the head.
D’Anne Witkowski has been gay for pay since 2003. She’s a freelance writer and poet (believe it!). When she’s not taking on the creeps of the world, she reviews rock ’n’ roll shows in Detroit with her twin sister.