©Bill Gnade
Jay Leno is not my favorite comic, even if he is a New Englander. Steven Wright's my guy, and he's got Red Sox blood coursing through his veins. But Leno, irrespective of his popularlity or pedigree, said something so bigoted last night that I have no choice but to rebuke him. [I am not sure if Mr. Leno's show last night was a repeat or not.]
During his monologue of Friday, June 3, Mr. Leno offered this gem (and until it is archived online I will have to cite it from memory):
"Leaders from the three great religions - Christianity, Judaism and Islam - are gathering in coming days in Jerusalem in order to organize a ban of an international gay pride parade in Jerusalem slated for next summer. Imagine, it has taken thousands of years to unite these religions in a peaceful way, and now they find unity in hate and bigotry."
Predictably (which is scary, if you think about it), there was strong applause for Mr. Leno's alleged joke.
It is no joke, however, that Mr. Leno doesn't give a laugh about his own bigotry: That religious folks opposed to the normalization and even celebration of homosexuality are deemed ipso facto bigots and hatemongers. And Leno is also blind to the fact that it is the great liberalizers, the great proponents of homosexuality, who hate, with passion, orthodox Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Why, Mr. Leno, do you think the world's gays want to ascend Jerusalem's holy heights? Do you think they go there to make peace with Christianity? Do you think they go there to embrace the Hasidim? No. They go there to chastize, rebuke, abuse and blaspheme the holy moralities of ancient faiths.
Who cares if homosexuality is perceived as sin by the majority of humans, particularly the majority of religious humans? Who cares if gays and lesbians smash into Mass in New York City, chain themselves to altars and pews, and spill to the floor the consecrated bread and wine, as if Christ's body and blood are so much sewage? Who cares if the gay minority is essentially anti-Catholic; and is entirely anti-papal? Who cares, Mr. Leno, about THAT kind of bigotry?
Yes, of course, we all know that the real bigots are those billions of people who believe that homosexuality is a deformation of the moral panoply. And we know that the peacemakers waving rainbow flags are coming to deliver the Holy Temple from the infidels. They shall deliver us all from our ancient sacraments, where body and blood, genital and bone, hand and heart, are profound symbols of transformative transcendence. It is the Christians, Jews and Muslims who are the perverts, religious zealots lost in medievalisms.
Mr. Leno must not know that the last international gay pride parade occurred in 2000, in Rome, against Vatican wishes. But it is NOT bigoted, at least to Mr. Leno, to march in a city even though the leader of the world's largest religion asks marchers not to march in certain holy avenues. And now orthodox Jews, who believe (rightly or wrongly) that homosexuality is "a pig or an idol in the Temple," to quote one Israeli religious leader, are to be forced to comply with a radical parade (there is a national parade this month, smaller, though no less divisive), that offends the foundational beliefs of the religious in Jerusalem.
But to offend an orthodox Jew is not bigotry. It's progress. (Laugh, laugh, laugh. Applause.)
Mr. Leno can be a funny man. But there is a tragic blindness in his remarks concerning deep religious sensitivities, and there is something quite callous about his punchline, which strikes below the belt.
Jay Leno threw a sloppy joke at the audience, and the audience cheered his wit. It's an easy audience to please, apparently.
Contratimes
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