PZ Myers points us to something truly hilarious. Apparently one of the Illinois Family Institute’s Laurie Higgins’ kids went to Gustavus Adolphus, a small Lutheran college in Minnesota, and Laurie has witnessed something horrible (terrible! outrageous!) that went on at their freshman orientation: a humorous, honest discussion of sex, in skit form! You see, in part of it, a couple has sex and uses a condom, which is evil; and then a gay student tells his friend that he’s gay, and the friend does not bully him, which is what Laurie supports; and then, a group of students with silly names talk about how abstinence is good, but if you don’t abstain, here are some things that you should do to make it safer, and there’s nothing worse than people making responsible choices when they have sex; worst of all, the ones who don’t have sex say they MASTURBATE, and they laugh about it on the stage, and the other kids laugh too!; et cetera.
What Laurie is really upset about in these videos is that the kids are being honest, funny, and aren’t flailing about with guilt at the mere mention of the word sex. Watch the first video, which MAY NOT be safe for work, and then we’ll listen to some of Laurie’s WAAAAHMbulance, together:
Okay, so fun, silly video, right? College freshmen are hormonal beasts, but they’re also not stupid, so it’s better to acknowledge it, laugh about it, encourage people to make smart choices, and a good time will be had by all.
Laurie is so upset:
Two videos of a freshmen orientation presentation at Gustavus Adolphus College, a small Lutheran College in St. Peter, Minnesota, have come to light that expose the repugnant ideas and images that college students at a purportedly Christian college think are funny.
NOTHING is funny when you’re a Fundamentalist! Did Jesus laugh? NO! He WEPT!
The first video begins with a couple having sex in their dorm room (complete with sound effects) and joking about putting a hat on the door to warn the boy’s roommate to stay out — for the fourth time in one week.
What?! A couple in college? Having sex FOUR TIMES in one week?! What are they, ANIMALS?
Laurie’s biggest complaints, though, are about this next video, where LGBT students are explicitly supported and affirmed. This is all, of course, awful and terrible, because again, Laurie basically supports hurting gay kids; to be clear, I doubt Laurie really wants bats taken to gay kids’ heads, but would rather suggest that for her and for her ideological cohorts, the gay kids that are bullied, beaten, or driven to suicide are simply collateral damage. What they really want can be ranked sort of like this:
1. Gay kids, in shame, deny who they are, and live fake, painful lives where they never experience fulfillment.
2. Some gay kids do #1, while those who are obstinate about it probably deserve what’s coming to them, for not seeing the “wisdom” of the disproven, scientifically bankrupt Fundamentalist Christian worldview. Bullying, beating, suicide…sad to them, but not as sad as #3.
3. Gay kids allowed to grow up happy, healthy and beautiful, just as they are, thus existing, as so many millions of us do, as the negation of the Fundamentalist Christian worldview.
The second half of the video is an egregious violation of Fundamentalist Christian Ethics and Morality, as it is a dramatic portrayal of the need for all people to accept and love one another, and Jesus woulda never said anything like that. None of the college freshmen in attendance had ever heard of gay people, and if they had only gone to the College Of Laurie Higgins’ Pursed Lips, they’d all be straight virgins today.
So now Laurie has some questions for Gustavus Adolphus, one of which can be filed under Walking Up To Tyler Clementi’s Funeral and Pissing On His Grave. Let’s hit that one first:
Does anyone see how the exhibitionism, voyeurism, and promiscuity which this freshman orientation presentation embodies and promotes relate to the Tyler Clementi tragedy at Rutgers University?
Oh wow, Higgins. You are truly a grotesque woman. You see, Tyler’s shame at being exposed most likely came from his Christian upbringing and the internalized homophobia that comes from that. Gay people don’t hate themselves in a vacuum, Higgins. People like you and your malcontent cohorts in life have to be there to inject homophobia into the discourse. You probably won’t be around to see it, but there will come a day when homophobia is exactly as socially unacceptable as Ku Klux Klan-style bigotry, and it will be amazing how the gay teen suicide rate plummets. Without “Christian” teaching, these kids won’t learn to hate themselves. Bullies won’t learn to hate gay kids. Bullies who are struggling with their sexuality won’t learn to hate themselves, leading them to perceive those who are not struggling as a threat. It will be a much more beautiful world.
What values does this freshmen re-orientation presentation foster? Does it demonstrate respect for the dignity of people, or does it degrade people?
It respects dignity, indeed, for people to make their own choices, responsibly, while fostering a climate of acceptance for people who are different. Apparently in Laurie’s world, dignity goes hand in hand with a chastity belt and a climate of shame.
Do the upperclassmen recognize that one of the most important forms of diversity in life-philosophical diversity-is missing from their puerile production? There is no representation of the view that modesty matters. There is no representation of the view that pornography is evil and the use of it destructive to the moral imaginations, lives, and marriages of men and women. There is no representation of the view that homosexuality and sadomasochism are perversions.
First of all, that would make for a sucky skit. It wouldn’t be funny, and it wouldn’t respect the diversity of the student body. As a sidenote, fundamentalists are always whining like babies about how their families, their worldview, are never portrayed by the eeeeeevil lib’rul Hollywood primetime teevee shows. They think it’s because people are attacking their way of life, but it’s not that — it’s that they’re not entertaining. They’re boring.
But all of that aside, the videos DO encourage abstinence, for those who choose it. They encourage safe sex for those who choose it. They encourage the gay kids, the straight kids, the bisexual kids, the transgender kids…all of them.
Also, there is no empirical evidence for the idea of homosexuality as a “perversion,” so it obviously has no place in an institution of higher learning. I know the videos would work out better for Laurie if they condemned homosexuality, because it probably would warm her black heart to imagine the gay kids in the audience feeling hurt and ashamed, but again, this a Christian university with a commitment to learning. No Bronze Age babble, please.
Anyway, kids, isn’t it nice to know that even some Christian colleges are working to foster an educational environment rife with tolerance, love and respect for others?
There’s hope for Christendom, there is.
