This is an article worth reposting everywhere. In The Weekly Standard, Maureen Mullarkey, a self-described “painter who writes on art and culture,” brilliantly addresses her accusers, effectively exposing the behind-the-scenes, rabid face of the virulent homosexual movement.
I regretfully admit that back in February, when I first wrote about Maureen, I too fell victim to inaccurate media reporting by adopting the AP’s sensation-inducing label/title of “Chappaqua Artist of Gay Themes.” In reality, Maureen relates:
To make sense of this, backspace to the early '90s and a series of paintings I exhibited called Guise & Dolls. It was a singular body of work based on images from New York's annual carnival, the gay pride parade. I could have used a New Orleans Mardi Gras or Munich's Fasching, but Manhattan was closer. At times funny and poignant, the parade was also--in the age of AIDS--tinged with sexual danger. The spectacle of it made a splendid analogy to the medieval danse macabre.
Festive misrule and the politics of carnival, deeply rooted in cultural history, are a compelling motive for painting. Think of Bruegel the Elder's Fight Between Carnival and Lent. The flamboyant Dionysian heart of the gay pride parade was the subject of Guise & Dolls, not homosexuality itself and certainly not any policy agenda. A public event free for the watching, it is staged to provoke audience response. I responded with a suite of paintings; they bore no relation to my prior or subsequent work. All suggestion that I "make a living on the back of the gay community," as my mail insisted, was a hysterical fantasy brewed in the grievance industry's fever swamp.
But no matter. I was up there now with Halliburton and Big Oil, a class enemy. The brownshirts came out in force.
When her donation was first made public, along with all the other millions of donations to Proposition 8, here is a sampling of the response she received from homosexual activists via email and snail mail:
Suddenly, I was "a vampire on the gay community" who should be put out of business. As one note put it: "Your career is over, you nasty piece of s--. F-- off! WHORE!"
My home address and email were repeated in comment sections in which readers egged each other on to "make the b---- pay." Militants trawled for editors and gallerists I had worked with to warn them that "the Gay Community is looking at our adversaries and those who may support them." (One former editor blind-copied me his exchange with an aspiring storm trooper who threatened a boycott for those "having an association" with me.)
Reprimands flooded in, all based on the false premise that fat slices of proprietary gay imagery were being creamed off the urban spectacle for my personal profit:
1. “You should apologize for your deceit. Stop using us as your subject matter in this incredibly exploitative manner. You must realize that your actions are no different than an artist depicting the black community contributing to white supremacist organizations.
How dare you use gay people as inspiration and then stab these people in the back by fighting to limit their rights. You are a disgusting, pitiful, opportunistic b----.”
2. “I don't understand why you would want to deny love in this world, no matter what form it takes. I can't imagine your motives, can't imagine your hate.
Our parades are not the only place you can fulfill your artistic vision. . . . You could visit the Hasidic community. You know, them? They wear "unusual" clothes, too. There are so very many freak shows you can enjoy in this world.”
3. “Homosexuals rule the World of Creativity, and that is whom you just f--ed with!
You represent the most despicable type of artist and human being. I do hope that you feel the financial pain your actions will bring. May God bless you with financial ruin for your treacherous deed.
Because I love delusional bigots, I hope you never see another dime, b----.”
4. “The grave ungood you have done is not only to us, lesbians and gays who expect no less than full civil rights in our own country, but ironically to your own art career. Unless you don't mind showing at Reverend Rick's or perhaps at Brigham Young University.”
5. “At first I thought there should be a special place in hell for people like you. But then I thought, maybe purgatory! A dull, nothing kind of Catholic nowhere. Just like you!”
6. Rick0564 wrote: "If God makes us Gay, then please let us love one another through marriage. It's what Jesus would do." Tina K inquired: "If I believed that Catholics should not vote, and managed to get a proposition passed to that effect, would that be fair to you?"
7. “Eat sh-- and die, c—.
Eat c-- and die, b----.
You right-wing, heterosupremacist t--.
You are the moral equivalent of a Jewish Nazi. Roast in hell, you filthy c—.”
It is one thing to read hate-filled mail on a computer screen. It is something else to have it in hand. At the end of the week, when it started coming to my house, I filed a police report.
After it all, I appreciate Maureen’s summary:
“My opposition to same-sex marriage does not originate in the pew. However much sympathy, affection--indeed, love--I have for certain gay persons, "gay marriage" burlesques a primal institution rooted in nature. Marriage, as a unique bond between male and female, predates all politics and religious doctrines. And no one has to believe in God to see social anarchy, with children adrift in the wreckage, at the end of the same-sex marriage road.”
Maureen Mullarkey, “painter who writes on art and culture,” is courageous. I appreciate the dignity and intelligence with which she faces her unruly oppressors.
~Pearl
[hat-tip Opine-Editorials]
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1 comments:
True colors indeed. The filth spewed in the attempt to shout down and intimidate opponents still amazes me. Of course it makes me want to fight even harder...
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