(Gay) Santa Claus is Coming to Town

How would the world react if Santa Claus was gay, and Mrs. Claus was nothing more than a beard? Now's your chance to find out, with a new production in New York, Santa Claus is Coming Out, that creates a world in which Santa Claus is still the rosy-faced, toy-bearing hero of thousands of children; he just happens to be in love with an Italian toymaker named Giovanni.

Surely there's nothing wrong with asking whether Santa Claus could ever be gay, right? Well, not if you're Focus on the Family. For them, you might as well call Santa Claus a murderer. Posting on their blog Citizenlink, everyone's favorite organization that focuses a lot on persecuting gay people and very little on families, writes that the play destroys the innocence of Christmas and shows the dark side of homosexual activists.

Their reaction is kind of funny, given that Jeff Solomon -- the playwright of Santa Claus is Coming Out -- wrote the play to highlight how fearful right-wing activists are of everything LGBT. And true to form, Focus on the Family has fallen right into his hypothesis.

"The show plays out against the backdrop of the latest salvo in America's Culture Wars: the debate on providing gay role models to children," writes Solomon. "It was inspired by my research into the parents’ rights movement to keep gay issues out of the classroom."

Solomon certainly had a lot of material to work with when it comes to right-wing organizations trying to keep anything LGBT-related out of the classrooms. Just look back on anti-LGBT activists in Maine and California, who said that if same-sex marriage became legal in their states, children would be forced to learn about gay marriage in Kindergarten. Or anti-gay activists who had chickens over the establishment of a Harvey Milk Day in California, fearful that children would learn about a man who inspired the LGBT rights movement.

Or perhaps the most visceral example yet, the right-wing's lying, manipulative campaign being waged against Kevin Jennings, the Department of Education official in charge of "Safe Schools." The Washington Times went so far as to call him the Secretary of Buggery, which is about as inspiring as your average third-grade playground taunt, and Rush Limbaugh went ballistic about Jennings today, accusing him of teaching fisting to fourth graders.

What's that old saying? There are lies, damned lies, and then right-wing nutjobs. The truth, of course, is that Kevin Jennings has been an all-star education leader, first at the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (GLSEN), and now in the Department of Education, making schools safer for students. Not that the right-wing would ever allow for that; they're too busy focused on his sexual orientation.

Which goes back to the point of Solomon's play, Santa Claus is Coming Out. Despite the fact that his play has no sexual content, groups like Focus on the Family are trying to attack it for being perverted. Much like they're trying to paint Kevin Jennings as morally depraved, despite the fact that his resume shows him to be a fantastic teacher.

Given the company of straight folks like Focus on the Family and Rush Limbaugh, I have no doubt that if Santa Claus isn't gay, he's probably wishing he was right about now.

(Photo courtesy of The Suss-Man (Mike's) Photostream on Flickr.)