BY ED SIKOV | Pink News out of the UK reports that “the anti-gay Catholic League has mocked gay designer Tom Ford for launching a range of penis-themed pendants in the shape of a cross.” The article goes on: “The fashion designer launched the $790 designer pendants this week –– which are available in gold and silver. There are three different options; small penis pendant, medium penis pendant, and large penis pendant.”
The Catholic League’s Bill Donohue is always good for a laugh and his response to the penis cross news did not disappoint: “When we learned of this item, I said to the staff that I bet this guy Tom Ford is a homosexual. I was right. He even thinks he’s married.”
It doesn’t take a clairvoyant to guess that a penis cross’ designer is likely to be a gay man or to predict that the pendant’s target audience is the same crowd. Who other than a successful gay designer would know that there were enough gay men with both the disposable income and the dreadful taste to justify the production of such a vulgar, garish item?
Media Circus
I’ve got to say –– to my enormous shock –– that I’m with Donohue on this one. It’s offensive to mock the central religious symbol of Christianity by turning it into a decorative cock. (The shaft is the post, and two balls form the crossbar.) I’m not questioning Ford’s right to produce the overpriced and astoundingly dumb thing. But I do think that mocking a holy symbol is an unnecessary provocation.
Gay folks dislike being made fun of. Nobody likes to be made fun of. Can’t we respect other people enough to avoid mocking their most heartfelt beliefs? Even those for whom respecting faith is impossible should recognize that turning a cross into an obscenity is just another way of spreading hate. Christ, do gay people always have to be such dicks?
That said, I must add that I’ve never understood how Christians justify wearing gold crosses as jewelry. Call me crazy, but it seems crass to me to put the means of Jesus’ excruciating death and the symbol of his miraculous resurrection on a gold chain and display it in a field of chest hair.
And don’t worry, I have no plans to stay cozy with Bill Donohue and the Catholic League. I’m perfectly happy to let him make an ass of himself –– again –– with his comments (quoted in the same Pink News article) about Guinness and the boycott of the popular Irish dry stout his group is currently pushing: “We should remember that this corporate bully tried to shove its secular agenda down our throats by punishing the New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade for not allowing gays to march under their own banners in 2014; it pulled its sponsorship.” I gotta tell ya, Bill, your unconscious is showing yet again. It’s long past time to put the “shoving things down our throats” trope to rest.
Stop the presses! From the Mail Online comes this shocking headline: “Berlin was a liberal hotbed of homosexuality and a mecca for cross dressers and transsexuals where the first male-to-female surgery was performed –– until the Nazis came to power, new book reveals.” No kiddin’! That book must really blow the lid off of everybody’s impression of the Weimar era. Can you say “Cabaret?”
Turning now to People for the American Way’s Right Wing Watch, which reports that the Family Research Council’s crackpot-in-residence Tony Perkins has been claiming recently that LGBT rights will cause an economic meltdown, “a rapid downward spiral of our nation, including our economy.”
Precisely how this financial collapse will occur, not to mention how it’s all going to be our fault, is notably absent from Perkins’ hysterical prediction. As quickly as he raised the alarm, he dropped the subject entirely and moved on to a tortured rationale arguing that what the objects of his hate see as hate is not in fact hate at all, but love. The house of Gay Liberation is on fire, Perkins explains, and he’s just being the Good Samaritan who comes to our aid:
“You go beating on the windows of the bedroom and you awaken them, now you’ve disturbed their sleep, you’ve wakened them up, you’ve disturbed them, you’ve made them uncomfortable because you’ve awakened them in the middle of the night and you’ve told them their house is on fire. Do you hate them because you’re doing that? I would say that you’re actually expressing love, profound love, by awakening them to something that is very destructive and liable to take their lives.”
Perkins doesn’t mention the fact that in the scenario he describes he’s the arsonist pouring gasoline around the house and hurling Molotov cocktails in through the windows. Am I mistaken or is this sanctimonious clown becoming more wacko by the month?
And to wrap up this year in media, here’s a recent headline, with no comment necessary –– from The Daily Dot: “Artist Paints Kim Kardashian Butt Portrait with His Penis.”
And a happy New Year to all.
Follow Ed Sikov on Twitter @EdSikov.
