EDITORS’ NOTE: The following column addresses issues of homosexuality and is written to inform adults. Baptist Press has tried to be discrete in presenting information about a recent event in San Francisco. But participants’ activities were so disgusting that even the general descriptions included below might distress a segment of our readers. The graphic nature of the behavior reveals the “gay rights” movement for what it is and what the future holds for the society our children will inherit if activists succeed in defining homosexuality as a protected class.
McMINNVILLE, Ore. (BP)–When a one-day event draws an estimated 400,000 people to one of America’s major cities, it usually is considered newsworthy. Such an occasion normally would have reporters tripping over one another. However, I am quite certain that you know next to nothing about the Folsom Street Fair that took place at San Francisco Sept. 25.
The annual event is one of the Golden Gate City’s premier celebrations of alternate lifestyles. Organized by Folsom Street Events, the fair raises money to help provide services to homosexual and AIDS organizations throughout San Francisco. The 2004 event raised $265,000.
But doesn’t it seem odd an event that draws such a huge crowd and raises such significant cash is almost completely ignored by the news media?
After a diligent search, I found only a handful of news reports on the event — and these were by California-based news organizations. Lexis-Nexis, an exhaustive news data base, revealed no reports by media outside of the Golden State.
So, why do the major media outlets ignore the Folsom Street Fair? Because if grassroots Americans were exposed to the world of alternate lifestyles celebrated at the fair, then the so-called Gay, Lesbian, Bi-sexual, Transgender (GLBT) movement would be damaged.
Just what took place at this year’s Folsom Street Fair? According to California news reports, the event showcased the kinky side of the alternate lifestyle movement. Those who get their sexual jollies by bondage, whipping, flogging and spanking publicly paraded their proclivities.
Also found at the fair was an abundance of nudity, including simulated and actual sex acts.
According to Inside Bay Area’s website, among the thousands attending the event was Sister Maple Syrup, a leather-clad nun in spiky black boots and neon blue hair. “I’m a kinky nun,” Maple Syrup said, before adding, “A great way to control a man is to get him to wear panties.”
Bill Worthen, vice president of Folsom Street Events, also was present at the fair. “Everybody has some degree of fetish,” he said.
Inside Bay Area reported that Worthen has been a part of the leather community for 10 years and “talks freely of interests in flogging” as well as the sexual stimulation he gets from urinating on another person or being urinated on by another.
And no, I am not kidding.
When Inside Bay Area encountered Bahran Aliassa, he was naked among the crowd and sexually stimulating himself — a practice he has been doing at the fair for the past six years.
Keep in mind that such actions are the norm — and not the exception — at the fair. Its website boasts that Folsom Street Event’s “mission” is to “create world-class volunteer driven leather events, providing the adult alternative lifestyle community safe venues for self-expression.”
Why do media outlets around the country ignore such a large gathering of the GLBT community? One reason could be that some homosexual activists insist that the fetish community is only a fringe element.
While it is true that every cause has radical elements that attach themselves to the movement, 400,000 people gathering in one city does not constitute a fringe.
Let anti-homosexual demonstrator Fred Phelps show up to an event with 15 protestors, and reports will appear from sea to shining sea. Included will be images of Phelps’ infamous “God hates fags” signs.
Yet the fact that Phelps is truly a fringe element doesn’t keep the media from reporting his antics.
If the 400,000 that gathered to flaunt their perversions in San Francisco truly are a fringe group and do not represent the mainstream of the GLBT movement, then why do proponents of homosexual rights not denounce the gathering?
When Fred Phelps protested in Oregon a few years ago, I was contacted by a local newspaper for comment. I told the reporter that Phelps did not represent our congregation or 99.9 percent of Southern Baptists. Many SBC leaders — including the denomination’s president — have made similar statements.
I have not heard any leader of a homosexual organization denounce or distance the GLBT movement from the so-called fetish fringe.
If the GLBT movement is all about love and relationships — which is the movement’s mantra — then why doesn’t it state publicly that public nudity, public sex and bondage does not represent its movement?
The reason is because the GLBT movement is about nothing but aberrant sex. And if any alternate sexual practice is condemned, then no sexual expression will be safe from challenge.
The media ignores events like the Folsom Street Fair in an attempt to hide the ugly reality of the GLBT movement. The truth be known, the fringe of the “gay rights” movement is the monogamous.
If events like the Folsom Street Fair were reported, then support for “gay rights” and “gay marriage” would greatly diminish. Everyone sympathetic to the GLBT movement knows this, and that is why you know next to nothing about an event that drew 400,000 people to San Francisco.
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Kelly Boggs is pastor of the Portland-area Valley Baptist Church in McMinnville, Ore. His column appears each Friday in Baptist Press.
