The need to pass California’s Proposition 8, upholding marriage between one man and one woman, has never been greater in my view after spending an afternoon at the San Francisco Folsom Street Fair on September 28.With well over 100,000 attendees, it’s unfortunately the third largest street event in California.
Folsom Street displayed the fully ripened rotten fruit of ‘tolerance’ and showed where it takes us: toward public nudity, public sex and consensual sex violence. The goal of same sex ‘marriage’ is the legitimate-appearing sister with an ugly evil twin: the movement toward total pansexual license throughout our culture. And concern for the effect on kids? Out the window.
We observed many buttons and signs urging ‘no’ votes on Prop 8 and also many signs supporting Barack Obama. This is the kind of wise public policy we can anticipate as a Folsom Fair mentality gains legitimacy, which it clearly has in San Francisco.
Along with the heads of several other pro-family groups, I spent four excruciating hours walking through the fair, documenting its horrors. One might ask, why bother? Two reasons. Here in San Francisco, most no longer have a problem with such outlandish behavior. These radical, misguided and lost people need to be challenged out of their comfort with this depravity. Can any of them be pulled from this fire?
But local officials seem entrenched in the endorsement of depravity. Mayor Gavin Newsom issued a letter last week congratulating the Fair on its 25 year anniversary. U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, third in line for the presidency, represents San Francisco but she has yet to utter a word of criticism against the Fair, even with its history of virulent anti-Christian blasphemy.
A second concern, at least as important, is the need to warn the rest of America: sit out this dance with the homosexual agenda, and Folsom Street and its offspring will be on your doorstep, beckoning your children, within a short time. Already, some of these elements—nudity, sex acts, sado-masochism-- are popping up in the growing number of street parties and ‘gay’ pride parades around the country.
The folks in San Francisco are woefully out of touch with mainstream America. Do you find whipping, being tied up (bondage) and master-slave role playing just normal variations of sexual behavior? We didn’t think so. But we had a chance to talk with the spokesperson for a national sado-masochism group, Susan Wright, who believes conservatives are few and far between, greatly eclipsed by a majority who accept these behaviors. She also thinks sado-masochism is an inborn “sexual orientation,” worthy at some point of legal recognition. In other words, some people are genetically wired to desire being whipped or chained for sexual pleasure. Current sexual orientation policies could be utilized to establish this new identity category, she believes.
What we witnessed at the Fair was almost beyond belief. Half or more of the crowd consisted of homosexual men, some fully nude. The smell of marijuana was everywhere. Masters and their ‘slaves’ strolled about. One man and woman were wrapped in pythons. Many college age kids and young adults were present.
We witnessed at least one open sex act, and many more episodes of male-to- male groping. Several vendor areas featured sado-masochistic acts. At one, they held a ‘charity whipping.’ The Fair itself donates much of its revenue to charity, which evidently excuses the perversion. Some goes to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, the twisted men-in-drag so infamous for mocking Christianity, heterosexuality and the Catholic church. The ‘sisters’ collect the entrance fee donations at the Fair gates. When I asked for an interview, one of them declined when he learned I was with a conservative Christian group.
So at the Society of Janus whipping booth, we witnessed a girl and a guy tied up and flogged. The girl, nude from the waist up, looked like she was in real pain. There was a huge group congregated around this area. I was truly sickened in an atmosphere of palpable spiritual evil.
At other booths, blasphemous sex toys were on sale. One could purchase items named after the Father, Jesus, Mary and so on. Homosexual pornography was available everywhere. And one vendor, 'Pan’s Devil Horns,'affixed horns onto the heads of eager fair-goers.
It was at this booth that we experienced an encounter with the truly dark side, as we were spotted and identified as Fair critics. A tall, scantily- dressed older guy pointed at Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans for Truth, and shouted, ‘It’s the religious right! They want to shut down the Fair! They’re here to take away your rights and to stop gay marriage!’ A sea of heads turned as this man followed us relentlessly for several blocks and continued to shout and point. He shoved LaBarbera, who told him to stop or he would call the police. When asked what his name was, our harasser replied, ‘Beelzebub!’ Indeed.
Another episode of overt spiritual warfare occurred after we exited the Fair to avoid our pursuer and re-entered at another gate (the Fair encompasses thirteen city blocks). We spotted a group of what appeared to be young teens laughing and dancing, apparently quite intoxicated. One boy was dressed as a girl. We approached them and asked if we could talk. One insisted he was eighteen; another said twenty. They looked more like fifteen or sixteen.
In an extended conversation with the ‘eighteen-year-old,’ I was told his parents didn’t care what he did. He held a triple X-rated ‘gay’ porn DVD evidently obtained at the Fair. Yet he was eager to talk to me, insisting he did not want to be homosexual and had tried to stop since he was eleven. I challenged him: then why are you here? Do you really want to stop? If so, don’t come to events like this. He said he just couldn’t help himself. I gently urged him to re-think his identity—that God had made him a guy, wonderfully able to have a relationship with a girl. He nodded. ‘I know,’ he said.
Just at that moment, before we could continue, the youth’s ‘boyfriend’ began screeching insults and obscenities at me. ‘You’re an *&##!’ He continued this screeching rant, growing louder and more out of control, until finally, a passer-by said, 'Oh, leave her alone!' We never continued the dialogue, because the group of boys disappeared into the crowd.
We spoke with police twice, after noting their consistent failure to detain any of the naked men strolling by. I asked a policeman why they didn’t do something about the nudity. He told us that his supervisors had given instructions to leave it alone. We got truly mixed signals about the legality of public nudity and public sex acts. Liberty Counsel researched California law and found that three California state laws (Sections 311.6, 313 and 314 of the California Code) applied to public indecency, with jail time of up to six months. And signs going into the Fair announced, ‘Nudity is Illegal.’ With so many openly nude men, this was almost comical.
Confusion or deception abounds. We were told by Susan Wright, our sado-masochism activist, that nudity is not illegal. One TV reporter asked why we focused solely on Folsom Street, since there’s a huge race called Bay to Breakers in San Francisco in the spring where many of the race participants, both men and women, are fully nude. So much for the rule of law in California.
In years past, young children were observed in the Folsom Fair crowd. Our group only spotted one stroller with a child this year— one too many-- but there were definitely many teens. Signs and written notices at the entrances gave heightened warnings about the attendance of children, stronger than previous years, perhaps due to criticism by pro-family groups.
Among other vendors was the San Francisco Department of Health, with two huge penises in their booth, presumably so their public health oversight could be taken seriously. AIDS education groups were also present, using taxpayer funds wisely. Also on hand was one of my personal favorite groups, PFLAG, Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. While we will not be able to show them to you in a pro-family context, it was easy to photograph nude men posing for cameras in front of the PFLAG booth. PFLAG is a consistent advocate of homosexuality and gender change among teens and even children.
The New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle had booths also, casting aside all pretense of objectivity. And the San Francisco Police Department had a recruiting booth, so apparently the blind can continue to lead the blind. I wonder: were nude men welcome to fill out applications?
By 6 pm, the vendors were closing down, intoxicated and high attendees were staggering away, and trash was blowing everywhere. We were wrapping up an extended interview LaBarbera had with Susan Wright. It was surreal, talking with an apparently coherent official spokesperson for this depravity. She firmly believes that children should not be exposed to this, that there are ethics about sexual experimentation and sado-masochism, that all these radical behaviors can be ‘managed’ carefully. I felt like shouting at her: look around you. This dark and depressing climate is the predictable result of ‘progressive’ ideas.
This de-humanization is actually regressive. There’s nothing new here: it’s primitive tribalism and the sins of the Old Testament pagan nations reincarnated, spiraling downward into barbarism. Only the sane and discerning can save California and the rest of America from its debased exports.
Christ came to save people from drowning in their own excess, but in the City by the Bay, drowning is not only apparently acceptable, it is eagerly pursued. So sad.
