Olympic Opening Ceremony and Celebrating Perversity
For the last 20 years, when it comes to LGBTQ+ people and issues, I have followed this simple directive from the Lord: “Reach out and resist,” meaning, “Reach out to the people with compassion; resist the agenda with courage.” Or, put another way (and now in the title of a forthcoming book), we should have hearts of compassion and backbones of steel.
In keeping with that spirit, I do not demonize those who identify as LGBTQ+, as if all of them were devious sexual predators who gloried in deviant practices and delighted in displays of public perversity.
Why, then, have gay pride events for decades been marked by these very perverse displays? And why were the opening ceremonies of the Olympic games, intended by the planners to draw attention to France’s LGBTQ+ community, marked by such perversity?
We can put aside for a moment the debate as to just how offensive the ceremonies were, in particular, the degree of intentionality behind the despicable mockery of DaVinci’s “Last Supper” portrait, with a drag queen, wearing a crown, taking the place of Jesus.
I will say, though, that the ultimate, ironically tone-deaf comments have come from those celebrating the “inclusivity” of the event, as if mocking something sacred to Christians were being inclusive to them. To quote the Associated Press directly, “In an unprecedented display of inclusivity, drag queens took center stage at the Paris Olympics opening ceremony, showcasing the vibrant and influential role of the French LGBTQ+ community—while also attracting criticism over a tableau reminiscent of ‘The Last Supper.’”
Or, as expressed by Paris 2024 spokesperson Anne Descamps, “Clearly there was never an intention to show disrespect to any religious group. [The opening ceremony] tried to celebrate community tolerance. We believe this ambition was achieved. If people have taken any offense, we are really sorry.”
Oh, the beauties of community tolerance! Would that the whole world would be tolerant like this!
In the end, sarcasm aside, however you slice the cake, the ceremonies were perverse, with the celebration of drag queens and transgenders and the final scene featuring a throuple (in this case, two men and a woman), moving toward sexual activity behind closed doors. Yes, this showcased “the vibrant and influential role of the French LGBTQ+ community.”
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In the words of Le Filip, who recently won the “Drag Race France” competition, “The [French] government knows what it’s doing. They want to show themselves in the best way possible. They showed no restraints in expression.”
And this leads me to back to my opening question: Why is this the way that France’s LGBTQ+ community wants to be seen and known?
As I have interacted with LGBTQ+ identified individuals over the years, the vast majority of them have been quite normal in terms of their interests and lifestyle. They are our co-workers, our neighbors, our family members, our friends, working their jobs, having their relationships, some of them raising kids, too.
Yet many with whom I have interacted have also had no problem with little children attending absolutely vulgar gay pride events, even with some events featuring public nudity. Something does not add up.
In my 2011 book “A Queer Thing Happened to America,” I noted that:
Gay activists are so careful to utilize carefully crafted language to communicate their points, using “gay” rather than “homosexual,” speaking of “gay and lesbian civil rights” rather than a “gay agenda,” and referring to “sexual orientation” rather than “sexual preference,” just to name a few. This makes it all the more ironic that such public, self-exposing, and self-denigrating displays have been standard fare in major gay pride events.
I then quoted lesbian feminist activist Tammy Bruce, who said, “If there is suddenly such a concern within the gay community about appearing ‘normal,’ perhaps men in suits should replace men in G-strings at gay-pride parades.”
Precisely so. But why, then, are these perversities so regularly celebrated? Why are these behaviors flaunted?
I continued:
Just think for a moment about how extreme this really is. If traditional couples came together for a “Celebration of Marriage” day in a public park, little children from the community would feel welcome, and people would not have to close their eyes and cover their ears to avoid contact with vulgar and obscene images, gestures and words. Yet large gay celebrations worldwide are commonly marked by nude or semi-nude parades, simulated sex acts, and [obscene] floats … Isn’t this perversity rather than diversity?
In the book, I documented some of the most outrageous expressions at major gay pride events, representing the depths of sexual perversity, then asking if we could imagine any ethnic group engaging in this kind of public celebration. Who in their right mind would associate any of this with Black Pride or Asian Pride or Hispanic Pride or Jewish Pride? But it is standard fare when it comes to the celebration of LGBTQ+ Pride. Why?
The answer is that, fundamentally, homosexual relationships and transgender expression represent a violation of God’s design for humanity, both in terms of the meaning of marriage and the meaning of sex-gender.
In the end, regardless of the degree to which every gay or lesbian or trans person on the planet is a fellow human being, created in the image of God and the object of His love, there is something fundamentally amiss with their desires and expression. In short, this comes down to a sexual deviation, expressed either in same-sex attraction or a confused gender identity (and in writing this, I recognize that in the overwhelming majority of cases, this deviation was not asked for or desired).
When this deviation is celebrated, it brings the perversions to the surface, also providing fertile ground for satanic expressions. These would include a devil-horned drag queen reading to little children, celebrated on Pride.com with the caption, “This Drag Queen Dressed as a Satanic Goddess to Read to Kids” in honor of LGBTQ+ History Month and Halloween.
We can now add to this list the Paris 2024 Olympics opening ceremonies, declaring to the entire world the fundamentally disordered nature of all sexualities and expressions that deviate from God’s original design.
May He have mercy, and may He redeem.
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Dr. Michael Brown (www.thelineoffire.org/) is the host of the nationally syndicated The Line of Fire radio show. He is the author of over 40 books, including “Can You be Gay and Christian?”; “Our Hands are Stained with Blood”; and “Seizing the Moment: How to Fuel the Fires of Revival.” You can connect with him on Facebook, X or YouTube.
