The Null Device

Muscular Christianity: The Religious Right in the US is trying a new tack to stamp out the plague of homosexuality: perhaps taking a cue from post-Columbine goth-profiling lists, they are circulating lists of warning signs of pre-homosexuality in children. Pre-gay boys, you see, are sensitive and aesthetically inclined, and pre-gay girls like to wear army boots.

What to do with a fashion-obsessed sissy boy? Nicolosi recommended corrective nudging toward macho recklessness. When an audience member worried that such an approach might stifle a budding artist or performer, the therapist responded that a boy wouldn't necessarily have to give up piano entirely; he could simply tickle the ivories a little less and toss the football a little more.

Could this be a sign of a new Christian Fundamentalist war against the artistic temperament, coming in through the door of mainstream Fundie homophobia? As it becomes entrenched, we may see more (non-homophobic) justifications for why anything other than hyper-masculinity and hyper-femininity is un-Christian, and returns to Puritan arguments against art.

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