Exponential Danger
The large voices of small minds make disturbing waves.
Philadelphia's FringeArts is set to perform a show called "Jesus Drag Superstar" in December 2021. The performance is backed by 30 students at a music school.
John Horvatt II who lives in a small town in Pennsylvania has decided this is blasphemous. Horvatt started a petition to get the show canceled. The petition has apparently received a number of signatures.
Who is Horvatt anyway? He is a leader of the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property; a group that, well, in the eyes of anyone who would consider themselves remotely progressive, left-leaning, would consider on the wrong side of history.
Let's get back to the show itself. Ok, you mix anything that sounds like religion with anything that sounds like it may be affiliated with the LGBTQAI+ community, it's not really a big surprise someone cried foul. This is nothing new. And this is not just about the queer community. Has anyone seen the Boondocks episode when Huey wants to have a Black Jesus in his Christmas play?
Let me ask you this. Have you heard anyone make a remark about how in modern times Jesus probably would have been canceled? I have. I have many times. Who was JC though? Someone with a lot of good ideas who developed a following. An influencer, right? Who did Jesus hate? No one. What would Jesus do? Not create a dangerous situation for those who are already persecuted.
Many of us are still reeling from the outcome of the Kyle Rittenhouse criminal case. A few of the facts. A young white boy went to another state, killed people with an assault rifle, claimed self-defense, was granted a verdict of "not guilty". As many have pointed out, someone killed Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber. Usually, if someone has been killed, someone is held criminally responsible for manslaughter or a related severe judgment.
There are not a lot of people like Kyle Rittenhouse on the left. Why does this matter? In June 2020, a group of armed vigilantes gathered in the Fishtown section of Philadelphia. The vigilantes were there to make a ruckus. Plain and simple. They were treated bizarrely nicely by the police. There are many photos and documentation to support this. A WHYY reporter, from Philadelphia's local NPR station, was brutally attacked and beaten by these vigilantes. Several others were also injured and many more were intimidated. This incident was both surreal and completely unsurprising given the social and political climate over the past few years as Trump fanned the flames of racial unrest that were already a powder keg we knew was there. We did not yet know just how bad it would get when the reins came off.
Here we are. Holiday season 2021 and a group is being threatened with cancelation for an art production. But it's much more than that. There is a serious matter of safety now. All of the vigilantes and so-called militia members and Proud Boys (and list goes on) are on the [political] right. They would most likely identify as Christian. They would most likely identify as anti-LBGTQ+. They would most likely identify as anti-Semitic. They would most likely identify as proud, patriotic Americans. They would most likely identify as hating progressives, hating the political left, hating even moderate democrats. Which of these would they admit publicly, I wonder?
It wasn't always like this. Remember Aziz Ansari's SNL opening monologue right after Trump was elected in 2017?
Remember John Oliver saying on Last Week Tonight that we had to stay vigilant. That we had to remember that these [The Trump Administration days] were not normal times. This was before the pandemic. This is before we would be talking about "The New Normal" in reference to life in the shadow of covid. So much darkness.
I'm worried on behalf of those in the production of 'Jesus Drag Superstar'. I keep dancing around the reason. I'll say it again. There are no Kyle Rittenhouse's on the left. I'm not saying there should be. This is not how we fight. We don't pick up a baseball bat, or a lead pipe, or a rifle, and physically go out in the world and proclaim that this is how we protect what we believe in. No one really wants it to be this this. What I'm describing is not a civilized society.
How then do we protect this group of artists and musicians who are performing a show? They are doing so within the boundaries of freedom of speech. They are committing no crimes. I want to see the show go on. I want to see proper protection. I want us to try to live in a civilized world. I have to tolerate John Horvatt and the ability of the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property to share their views. Progressives and liberals should not have to live in fear of conservatives and the religious right. Both sides see the other as extreme. Only one side consistently advocates for the use of live ammunition.