Okay, I’ll put some thoughts here and also post them over on the AmericanDigest.org thread. Quite a thread over there (although there are a few comments with unedited language – not for the eyes of children)! I hope this spurs a continuation of the discussion.
The first point that needs to be addressed is the notion that almost no art today is produced without the involvement of sodomites or other sex perverts, whether it be in production, set building, backing or orchestral musicians, etc. My answer goes directly back to my original thesis: the issue is whether or not the art itself projects an aesthetic of sexual perversion, or points to or is perverse and obscene. Can I promise you that every contractor or laborer that worked on the building or remodeling of the house I live in was sexually normal and pure? Of course not. If the man who installed the bathroom tile were a sex pervert, how could I know that, and even if I somehow did, does that mean I should move out of my house? Well, not unless he arranged the bathroom tiles in the shape of a phallus. In exactly the same way, we can’t know who every orchestral musician or set builder was, but what we can know is whether or not the ART ITSELF points to or glorifies sodomy.
And, as an aside, this is why you get your house blessed by a priest early and often – at least once per year at either Epiphany or Easter. Not only is the sacramental a conduit of grace, but it also gives one peace of mind. And, may I just ask, have you ever slept in a hotel? At this point, every hotel room in the western world is pretty much guaranteed to be a crime scene – because remember, sodomy is a crime.
This reminds me of the heresy of Donatism, which is a MASSIVE problem in The Church today. Many very pious people are tempted to believe that the interior state of the soul of the priest determines whether or not the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is offered. Hence, many people fall into the heretical trap that all Masses and sacraments performed by sodomite priests (or heterosexual fornicator priests, etc.) are invalid, and that any priest in the state of mortal sin is incapable of confecting the Eucharist. This is, of course, TOTALLY WRONG. Considering that it is, by definition, impossible for any of us to know the state of the soul of anyone else, much less a priest, how IN THE WORLD could Jesus Christ hold us responsible for that, and how could Jesus Christ establish His Church and His Sacraments such that they would be not just illicit, but INVALID a non-trivial percentage of the time with it literally impossible for the faithful to know either way? This argument maps closely to what we are talking about with art. How could people be held responsible for what Tchaikovsky did, or whatever sodomite Renaissance painter? Can one determine from the 1812 Overture that Tchaikovsky was a sodomite? Of course not. Nor can one determine from da Vinci’s Annunciation what da Vinci’s sins were.
I’d also like to revisit a point I made not too long ago, namely that up until just a few short decades ago, many people literally did not know about sodomy, homosexuality, transvestitism, pedophilia, bestiality – none of it. At all. Lots and lots of people in the Christian world went through life never knowing that there were people who engaged in same-sex sins. I cited a clip from the 1980s sitcom “The Golden Girls”, in which the promiscuous, Jezebel character Blanche, confuses “Lesbian” for “Lebanese” and has to have it explained to her. It got a huge laugh not because it was implausible, but because it WAS plausible. THIS is why the flamboyantly gay pianist Liberace was as popular as he was, and with the demographic that he was popular with – old women. When Liberace came mincing out out on stage in a pink sequined tuxedo, it literally NEVER OCCURRED to most of the elderly women in the audience that Liberace was a sodomite because a non-trivial percentage of them were totally unaware that sodomy existed on earth – and I’m not exaggerating. And THIS ties back to the piece I just wrote on how Diabolical Narcissists (when all sex perverts, by definition, are to one degree or another) derive their greatest satisfaction from watching people watch them as they act out. Liberace got his biggest rush from the fact that a bunch of old women who went to the United Methodist church every Sunday and probably taught Sunday school were his biggest fans, and that he was rubbing his sexual perversion in their faces, and they were too “stupid” and “unsophisticated” to even realize it. Should they have at least been off-put by Liberace’s aesthetic, especially when he stopped wearing normal black tuxedos in the 1960s and started wearing the ridiculous outfits that he did? It is hard to say. Given how jaded and steeped in perversity we all are, it is pretty much impossible to revert back to a mindset innocent of all of the filth we now know. This is a perfect example of how only Christ can judge the soul of man.
The next point is the notion that ONLY sodomites are good at certain types of art. Again, this is false, and the best example of this is ballet and dance in general. First, ballet. It is taken as axiomatic that all male ballet dancers are sodomites just by virtue of the fact that ballet is intrinsically graceful. But this notion is false – a product of the fact that sodomites infected, were tolerated and then pretty much took over ballet. But isn’t it interesting that the two best male ballet dancers of the 20th century were totally heterosexual – Mikhail Baryshnikov and Fernando Bujones. Both were incredibly good dancers, graceful yet powerful and almost preternaturally athletic, and also compelling in their roles as male leads, interacting romantically with the ballerina, as almost every ballet entails. Isn’t is telling that in a field as saturated with sodomites as the ranks of male ballet dancers is, that it was the heterosexuals that were head and shoulders above the rest.
Two other great male dancers of the 20th century also bear mentioning: Fred Astaire and Gene Kelley – both straight. Astaire projected masculine elegance, and was at his best serving as a mobile stage decoration for Ginger Rogers, while Kelley was the all-American athlete-dancer. Donald O’Connor gets an honorable mention here, too.
In my next entry on this topic, I will specifically deal with Michelangelo, who seems to always be cited in conversations about this subject.
Cruise over to AmericanDigest.org if you have anything to add.
Baryshnikov at his peak. The pirouette sequence at the end is insane. Look at the control at the finish.
Fernando Bujones, a Cuban-American:
Gene Kelley and Donald O’Connor: