If you ever want a good belly laugh, read blog posts from Exodus International’s Randy Thomas (see pretentious picture, left). He has this incessant need to pose as a deep, contemplative thinker, which is problematic considering he can nether write nor think in a particularly lucid manner. The dilettante’s latest humdinger was his post commenting on a Time Magazine story on Gay Day at Disney.
In his bloviation, he takes a veiled swipe at sensationalistic homophobes, such as Porno Pete LaBarbera, when he writes:
Within the Christian community it also bothers me when Christian activists will go into these events, take a few tabloid TMZ worthy pictures and then post those as the only representation of what gay people are trying to do to our country. I always maintain that stigmatizing (anyone) is not Christ-like.
Of course, Thomas quickly contradicts himself by stigmatizing LGBT people:
It worth noting that TIME actually showed both gay couples seeking to be mainstream and the gay party scene. On one hand you have the lesbian couple with children as opposed to scantily clad men at 17 different pool parties, the after hours waterpark party and “rivers of alcohol.” The article also mentions other very racy elements associated with the event.
Scantily clad men at pool parties — imagine the surprise and horror…because surely Thomas would have gone down the water slides in a fine, tailored Italian suit. Maybe, he’s just freaked out because all the hot guys are getting him excited?
How about the alarming notion of men consuming alcohol while partying? Because, of course, straight people never get sloshed at Spring Break events in Fort Lauderdale, Panama City or Daytona Beach. And, they never go half naked in body paint and get trashed at University of Florida football games. Thanks for the great, “fair and balanced” insights Randy!
Thomas, while pretending to be objective, chastises the LGBT community and urges honesty:
Yet honesty is a Christ-like attribute as well. While the gay community is much more complex than this, there is a strong dueling undercurrent within the gay community of mainstreaming vs. overt public sexuality.
As a Florida native, I can recall countless heterosexual revelers fornicating on our lovely beeches, leaving condoms in the sand, vomiting booze on our white sidewalks, pissing on our green lawns, fighting in nightclubs and behaving belligerently towards the locals.
Yet, I’m intelligent enough to realize that when you have an economy based on tourists (gay or straight) partying , this is the sacrifice you make to collect their dollars. I don’t put forth pseudo-intellectual trash, such as, “While the heterosexual community is much more complex than this, there is a strong dueling undercurrent within the straight community of mainstreaming vs. overt public sexuality.”
Look, when people come to Florida to party — they get drunk. If they are lucky, they have sex. And, inevitably, they swim, and when they do so, they are usually pretty close to naked. If Thomas can’t comprehend this, maybe he should return to Texas. Well, come to think of it, they also drink in Texas and wear swim trunks at the Galveston beaches too. There’s always Saudi Arabia…
Randy then puts on his paper dunce, um, I mean thinking cap and asks (emoticon and bold type are his):
So the open-ended no assumptions based questions
for this post is: How does one describe the gay community accurately and honestly? Did TIME magazine do a good job? Is there a gender difference on community goals within the gay community? (The article contrasts lesbians with the male party scene.) What is the best way for Christians to do outreach at gay pride events?
Perhaps, Thomas doesn’t get this, but there is no real gated community which houses the ho-mo-sex-uals. The notion is metaphorical and usually has to do with the fact that we must band together to protect ourselves from self-loathing bigots like Thomas, who work hard to deny LGBT people their basic rights. To paraphrase Larry Kramer, we are more of a “population” than a community that defies easy or simplistic categorization — which appears to be a specialty of Thomas.
As for ways self-righteous phonies like Thomas can do outreach at Pride? How about staying the hell home, so hard working people can enjoy a few precious vacation days without being verbally assaulted and told they are — to quote Exodus — sexually broken?
Both straight and gay people go to Florida for drunken revelry and escapism. The last thing tourists want to hear while they are having fun is a sexually repressed, self-hating homosexual preaching about his puny, angry version of God who is constantly on sexual surveillance.
Just because Thomas has eschewed sex, does not give him the right to condemn others and demand they also live a eunuch lifestyle. Lighten up, Randy. As a carpetbagger, you might not realize that people have been going to the Florida beaches scantily clad and drinking themselves into stupors forever. Newsflash: This started long before the gay rights movement even existed. So, stop asking us to justify or apologize for having fun in the Sunshine State. It just makes you look like the small-minded bigot you truly are.
Randy Thomas: “Yet honesty is a Christ-like attribute as well.”
Umm, no. Honesty is not unique to Jesus of Nazareth or Christianity, despite Thomas’ insinuation. In fact, honesty and the politicized Christian Right are rapidly becoming mutually exclusive phenomena.
As a Texan myself, I have to say we absolutely have our fair share of half naked people, both gay and straight, and honestly, often more likely straight, running around, swimming or not. It’s because Texas is freaking hot! :)
Perhaps he should move to Alaska.
But anyway, my church once banned teenage girls from wearing shorts, because one of the boys told the youth pastor that a girl was “making” him sin, just by wearing shorts that stopped above her knees. It was a hundred degrees outside for crying out loud. This idea that showing skin is the same concept that put women in corsets and crinoline in the Victorian era. Do we really want to go back to a time when people fainted, and got really sick for fear of showing a little skin on a fry-an-egg-on-the-sidewalk day?
Not to mention the hypocrisy of blasting one group of people for it and disregarding other groups that do the exact same. It’s like people of color in the news. You really think black people and mexicans run around stealing and killing all day? From just watching the news it would seem to be a proper conclusion, but get out in the real world and you’d better know better or else you’re just dense.
Wayne…I was there, not only for Gay Days but also the private party at Typhoon Lagoon. Aside from the fact that gay folk, and particularly gay men, tend to not wear bathing suits that go down below knee length and look like something Bozo the clown’s costume room, there wasn’t anything all that racy there. Once upon a time, even heterosexual guys wore bathing suits like the ones I saw. But then once upon a time they used to wear their summer shorts above the knee too.
And as for “rivers of alcohol”… Does Thomas know they serve alcohol at every theme park in Disney World except Magic Kingdom? A bartender at the “Yak and Yeti” in Animal Kingdom told me once he wanted to get his friends to do a bar crawl with him around World Showcase Lagoon in Epcot. I thought that was a good idea myself and I’d love to try it with some friends. Probably the only time you don’t see a line of heterosexual mommies and daddies in front of the frozen margarita shack in front of Epcot Mexico is right after the park opens. And the tequila bar inside offers some of the best, and most expensive, tequilas Mexico has to offer. Try the $25 dollar glass of Don Julio 1942. Trust me.
In Hollywood Studios, the Tune-In lounge is like a trip back into the 1950s, complete with Disney-Faux old TV sets over the bar showing loops of 1950s TV shows. Try the “Dad’s Electric Lemonade”. It comes with a glow-cube. Or splurge and have dinner and a Manhattan at the Brown Derby.
The bars in Disney World do a very good business and you have to figure they aren’t there because one week a year a lot of gay folk come to the parks and spend money. And yet, I’ve never seen any overt drunkenness or rowdiness. Never. According to Time one guest had to be escorted out of the Typhoon Lagoon party for intoxication. That was what…one out of what…hundreds…that park was full. What kind of statistic you think Spring Break parties get elsewhere? Ah…but those are heterosexual boys and girls…so that’s okay…
Walt Disney was a lot of things, but one thing he absolutely was, was a passionate believer in progress, and that alone had to put him, eventually, on a collision course with the American kook pews. But he died well before that gutter had a chance to rise once more from the ashes of the Scopes trial. Gay folk go to Disney World for the same reasons everyone else who like that Disney mindset does. A place where, at least for a while, you can believe that dreams can come true. Where there’s “a great big beautiful tomorrow shining at the end of every day…” A place, particularly in Epcot, where the pursuit of knowledge isn’t just seen as a good thing, but a great adventure. Never mind the gay friendliness…you don’t teach children that the pursuit of knowledge is a great adventure and stay on the good side of the religious right. The boycotts would have happened eventually anyway.
That Disney mindset pervades everything there and everyone just gets along. The kind of people who get rowdy, or who just have to hate somebody for life to be worth living are probably the same ones who don’t like that Disney mindset to start with and don’t go there. The entire week I only heard one complaint from another guest about the gay presence. Mostly, the other guests just took it all in stride and had a good time. It’s a small world after all.
Besen, I am a bad influence on you.
I snark, you snark harder.
Yes, Randy Thomas…come on over to Jacksonville, Florida. I’d LOVE to have a “conversation” with you. Personally, I think you’re incredibly hot, and I give you the mind fortitude to last at least an hour with me before you end up in my bed. That’s actually quite a compliment being that my average for your type is thirty minutes. C’mon over and let’s get on our knees…and pray, of course.
Bottom line, circus act…we’re not afraid of your brand of crazy anymore. Your monkey-skull-crowned spear rattling by the campfire is nothing but voodoo to us now. But I’m not here to threaten you, Randy. I’d really like to kiss you. You need some lip brushing, hot, moist tongue to mouth action. If I lit you up, it’s a fire that wouldn’t go out. Burn with me, sexy.
When I was at Disney Gay Days a few years ago, I saw plenty of red shirts (to identify ourselves as gay), but did not see one drunk or disorderly person anywhere at anytime! So why does Time consider this newsworthy anyway? It’s been going on for years. Gay-days at Disney—yawn.
“Scantily clad men at pool parties ‚Äî imagine the surprise and horror…because surely Thomas would have gone down the water slides in a fine, tailored Italian suit. Maybe, he’ just freaked out because all the hot guys are getting him excited?”.
Of course that’s the reason why he’s freaked out – he can’t seperate the image of a man in a bathing suit from thoughts of sex with him.
Same ’round here in Ft. Myers; it’s predominantly straight folks who are out and about, getting drunk and swimming the beach while wearing next to nothing. Some of them are–gasp!–old folks, too!
What kind of a fantasy world does Randy live in?
“he can’t seperate the image of a man in a bathing suit from thoughts of sex with him.”
I know just how he feels.
Ever been to the Typhoon Lagoon Friday night party during Gay Days in Orlando? Well, I have. It’s fun, peaceful, friendly, and does not involve public sex or even drunkenness. Imagine 5,000 beautiful men in bathing suits having a great time, swimming, going on water rides, talking and dancing. No one is drunk or belligerent. I did see astonishing men, but unfortunately, none of them were doing anything particularly “racy.” That would have been fun, but alas, it didn’t happen.
Now, move it up the coast a thousand miles and we’re in New York City. It’s 3 a.m. on a Sunday morning, and my boyfriend and I are leaving Roxy, at the time the biggest gay dance club in New York. In the many times I was in that club over the years I never once saw anything remotely approaching an altercation. Even with thousands of people in the club, they hardly needed a single bouncer, and that’s the way it is at the Winter Party in Miami, the White Party in Palm Springs, any gay party or club you go to. Never saw a fight in all the years I’ve gone to those events. So, here we are outside Roxy, walking toward 18th Street and 10th Avenue to get a cab uptown, and what do we see? The little straight bar on the southeast corner with eight police cars in front of it, police cars up on the sidewalk, cops and bouncers everywhere, and arrests being made.
I am not saying that the gay community is superior to our straight brothers who seem, when two or more of them gather in a bar, to need 8 bouncers and 12 police officers at the ready to break up their violence. I’m just saying that it would be nice if clowns like Randy Thomas would notice that gay clubs and parties are about the safest place you can go at night–and straight women certainly know this. The only thing that makes gay parties or clubs dangerous is when homophobic thugs are waiting outside to attack gay guys.
I think what bothers a lot of straight guys, in addition to the fact that they can’t understand gay guys at all, is that we don’t take ourselves so damn seriously all the time. We have a sense of humor about ourselves, and we are not constantly desperately trying to prove our masculinity. That’s really liberating. We have a lot to smile about, despite the war of bigotry, hatred, and unfairness being waged against us.