A Profane Virgin Mary Christians Won’t Recognize

April 26, 2013 By 2 Comments
BROADWAY PLAY, ‘THE TESTAMENTOF MARY,’ IS PROFOUNDLY OFFENSIVE TO CHRISTIANS.

BROADWAY PLAY, ‘THE TESTAMENTOF MARY,’ IS PROFOUNDLY OFFENSIVE TO CHRISTIANS.

“Full of grace and compassion,” praised USA Today. “Spellbinding & exquisitely emotional,” gushed Entertainment Weekly. “Likely to be a force in Tony races this season,” predicted the New York Times.

So on what Broadway production were those publications heaping such plaudits? “The Testament of Mary,” which opened this week on the so-called “Great White Way.”

Here’s what you would never know from reading the reviews appearing in the mainstream media: The one-woman play is one of the most patently offensive takes on the mother of Christ since Chris Ofili’s 1996 painting, titled “The Holy Virgin Mary,” in which the artist smeared elephant dung over his depiction of a black Madonna.

“The Testament of Mary” stars Fiona Shaw, the Irish actress best know for her cinematic role as Harry Potter’s aunt Petunia. The play is directed by British director Deborah Warner, who has a long-term collaborative relationship with Shaw, and is based on the 2012 book by Irish novelist Colm Toibin.

Now here’s the back story (which somehow didn’t make it into the reviews published by USA Today, EW or the Times):

Actress Shaw is a lesbian. She had a relationship with actress Saffron Burrows, who played Shaw’s lover in the British production of “The PowerBook,” a play based on the novel of the same name by Jeanette Winterson, the lesbian partner of director Warner.

Oh, what an incestuous web they weave.

Then there’s Toibin. He is a homosexual and has written about gay sex in several of his novels. He is, perhaps, most notorious for his public defense of fellow Irish writer Desmond Hogan, who in 2008 confessed to a charge aggravated sexual assault against an underage boy.

During Hogan’s trial, Toibin asked the court to be lenient with the pedophile because he is “a writer of immense power and importance.”

These are the un-worthies – Shaw, Warner and Toibin – that have brought “The Testament of Mary” to the Broadway stage. And their depravity, their decidedly un-Christian worldview is on full display.

Indeed, Shaw’s Mary bears no resemblance to the blessed virgin who appears in Gospel accounts. The actress’ bizarro Mary converses with the audience while dragging on a cigarette and sipping on a bottle of hooch.

She confides that Her son, Jesus, is not the savior He’s made out to be. She hints that His conception was not as immaculate as advertised. She dismisses as some sort of joke all “the high-flown talk” about miracles her son supposedly performed. She considers His disciples “a group of misfits.”

Shaw concludes her portrayal of Mary, the mother of Christ, by stripping off her clothes and standing nude – that’s right – before her audience. That just might earn the actress the Tony Award the Times predicted.

Filed Under: ENTERTAINMENT Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Bristol Palin is an Overcomer

June 19, 2012 By 2 Comments

FAITH IS EVERYTHING TO 21-YEAR-OLD BRISTOL.

I’m a Bristol Palin fan. I think the young Christian woman is a role model for teen-aged girls (and boys) who’ve overcome bad decisions in their lives.

Bristol’s backstory will no doubt be familiar to most of those who tune in to her new reality show, “Life’s a Tripp,” which premiers tonight on Lifetime network.

She became a single mom at 18 years old, the “highest-profile teen pregnancy of the year,” declared the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.

That’s because, unlike the other 440,000 or so teen-age girls who gave birth in 2008, Bristol’s mother was not only the governor of Alaska, but also the suddenly famous Republican Party nominee for Vice President of the United States.

At a time when young Bristol almost certainly would have preferred anonymity, her private life was out in the open for the whole world to see. And because her mom was not only Republican, but also conservative, Bristol found herself the subject of many unkind attacks.

But Bristolproved herself more than a conqueror, through her Christian faith.

While she accepted that her pre-marital sexual relationship with boyfriend Levi Johnston was wrong in the eyes of God, she did not compound her sin by aborting their unborn baby.

And while she hoped to marry the father of her son Tripp, and get their relationship right with God, she ultimately decided that it was better to be a single mom than to wed a ne’er-do-well like Johnston, who’s most noteworthy life achievement was a 2010 semi-nude pictorial for Playgirl magazine.

Now 21 years old, Bristol has come into her own. The trials, the tribulations she has faced since she was pregnant with Tripp have drawn her closer to Christ; made her a stronger, more confident young woman.

Bristol’s 2010 appearance on ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars” proved to be her coming out party. Defying expectations, she made the finals of the competition, an unlikely outcome she attributed to faith and prayer (not to mention the overwhelming support she received from the voting public).

Like her mom, Bristol has found herself the target of haters. Like Stephen Hanks, the obnoxious homosexual who shouted sexual obscenities at the young Christian woman while she was shooting an episode of her Lifetime show at a Hollywood restaurant.

Bristol, “the Pistol,” did not shrink from battle with the hater.  She got in the homosexual’s grille. And she gave him no quarter.

It is because Bristol puts on the whole armor of God each day that she has the boldness to confront the vile and wicked, like Hanks. “I know that God is on my side,” she said on ABC’s Good Morning America. “And my faith is everything to me.”

Filed Under: CELEBRITIES Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Va. Gays Mad After One of Their Own Denied Judgeship

May 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment

THORNE-BEGLAND [L] AND SAME-SEX PARTNER AT GAY PRIDE PARADE.

Every news story I’ve read about Tracy Thorne-Begland reports that he was denied a state judgeship by Virginia’s House of Delegates because he is openly gay.

But that’s a lie.

Thorne-Begland, a Deputy Commonwealth Attorney for the city of Richmond, was voted down by a 33-to-31 majority of the Virginia House because he is a gay activist.

 The chamber’s conservative Republicans expressed concern that the nominee for a seat on the General District Court in Richmond would transmogrify into a judicial activist.

And they almost certainly were correct.

They need look no further than California where Proposition 8, a voter-approved amendment to the state’s constitution that prohibited same-sex marriage in the Golden State, was struck down by federal Judge Vaughn Walker.

Walker retired after his ruling. He subsequently disclosed that he was gay and that he and his same-sex partner had been together for quite some time.

The gay jurist had an obvious conflict of interest, as his ruling made it possible for him and his manfriend to marry. Yet he did not have the ethics, the integrity, to recuse himself from the case.

Is there any reason to believe that Thorne-Begland would have been a less activist judge than Walker, who kept his homosexuality on the down low until the Prop. 8 case fell into his lap?

I think not.

Indeed, Thorne-Begland came out of the closet nearly 20 years ago when he brazenly challenged the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. The Navy was kind enough to give the former fighter pilot an honorable discharge.

The Virginia barrister could have been discreet about his sexual orientation, quietly raising the twins he adopted with his same-sex partner.

But Thorne-Begland decided to be a homosexual activist, working with the Human Rights Project, as a spokesman for their “Coming Out Project,” and serving six years on the board of Equality Virginia, a group promoting gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender causes.

Thorne-Begland tried to put to rest fears of conservative lawmakers in the commonwealth’s House of Delegates that he would take his homosexual activism to the General District Court.

“My decisions will be guided by, and be faithful to, the constitutions, the laws, and the case authority of the commonwealth and theUnited States,” he wrote, in a letter toDel. David Albo, Chairman of the House of Delegates’ Courts of Justice Committee.

Of course, Vaughn Walker offered similar assurances when he was under consideration for the federal district court seat he occupied at the time he issued his highly controversial ruling declaring that same-sex couples have constitutional right to marry.

By denying Thorne-Begland a judgeship,Virginia’s House of Delegates has ensured that the gay activist won’t get an opportunity to follow Walker’s example.

Filed Under: GAY ACTIVISM Tagged With: , , ,
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