LGBT Activists Vilify Pastor Arrested For Enacting Plot Of Celebrated Gay Movie

[Ubiquitous]

It seems a same-sex, adult-teen relationship is either
a beautiful expression of LGBT progress or an example
of perversion deserving of jail time, depending entirely
on whether the adult involved is a Christian.


Back in 2017, Queerty, a prominent LGBT news and advocacy site,
gleefully shared a recut of the trailer for the award-winning movie,
“Call Me By Your Name,” featuring clips from Disney’s “Monster’s
University.” In 2018, on the site Dan Tracer lamented that explicit sex
scenes between the two main characters, a 17-year-old boy and a 24-
year-old man, were cut from the main release.

Describing the decision, Tracer wrote, “James Ivory, who won the Oscar
for writing the film’s screenplay, says his original script called for
full-frontal from both the film’s two stars. Both Timothée Chalamet and
Armie Hammer’s contracts, however, nixed that plan.”

Controversy had already been swirling around the movie based on the
adult-teen romantic relationship when James Woods scolded one of the
main characters, Armie Hammer, for promoting that relationship. Queerty
referred to this as “homophobic.” When challenged, Hammer simply waved
away criticism, arguing that “in most U.S. states, the age of consent
is 16. In Italy, where the movie takes place, the age of consent is 14;
it was also 14 in 1983, when the movie is set.”

Struggling with the ethics of the movie, Slate writer Jeffrey Bloomer
concluded his review of the movie, lamenting, “It’s not reasonable to
say the movie endorses pedophilia, or really any kind of power-based
abuse, just because it depicts that relationship. If we go down that
censorious and unnuanced path with our art, very little will survive
the trip.”

With the movie’s incredible praise from the LGBT media, and the media
at large, it would seem the left considers a 24-year-old man and a
teenage boy engaging in a sexual and romantic relationship to be
positive and empowering. But this view sharply ends when a competing
social narrative enters the story.

A Double Standard About Underage Sex

Reporting on the story of a fired and criminally charged youth pastor,
Queerty tweeted, “Antigay youth pastor busted from sexting teen boy,
asking for x-rated pics,” with mugshot photos of the 24-year-old man
charged. The article begins saying, “Another day, another antigay
preacher busted for being a pervert. This time it’s Paxton Singer, a
former youth pastor at Harvest Bible Chapel in Aurora, Illinois, who
allegedly asked a 16-year-old boy to send him nude pics and sneak away
with him for a weekend alone together.”

Another young man, who was 17 at the time, told police of an
inappropriate relationship with Singer. Singer was indicted for sexual
exploitation in 2018, and his trial is set to begin in September.

So it seems a same-sex, adult-teen relationship is either a beautiful
expression of LGBT progress or an example of perversion deserving of
jail time, depending entirely on whether or not the adult involved is a
Christian. It is common for LGBT media to revel in humiliating
Christian leaders who are secretly gay by exposing them.

The article does not specify what qualifies the former youth pastor as
being “anti-gay,” and glosses over the fact that the church fired him
and reported him to the authorities immediately upon learning of his
actions. But none of that matters. The story here is that an “anti-gay”
pastor was humiliated as a hypocrite.

In a Washington Examiner article, “Why is LGBT media normalizing
quasi-pedophilia?,” writer Brad Polumbo describes the relationship
between a 55-year-old man and a 22-year-old man who met when the
younger was 17, and argues, “Rather, it’s the disturbing attempt to
‘normalize’ 30-year age gaps that involve a middle-aged man preying on
a teenage boy and possibly paying him for sex.” The younger man
defended himself, saying, “I’d recommend for you to keep your mind open
and know that love comes in many shapes, forms, sizes, colours, and
ages.”

The leftist LGBT movement seems unable to decide if it approves.

Exploiting Minors Is the Real Problem

There are deep issues in the gay male community about this type of
relationship. In 2017, the top gay porn search word, for example, was
“daddy.” The Advocate titled a guide for younger men, “29 Things You
Should Look for in a Daddy: It takes a lot more than bedroom prowess to
make a happy and healthy daddy-son relationship.”

In Queerty, the same author referring to the former youth pastor as
“perverted” wrote an article titled, “PHOTOS: Gay Daddies And Their
Sexy Sons Together On Father’s Day.” Yet another Queerty article is
titled, “Six Pro Tips For Being The Best Daddy For Your Boy.” The
language, the culture, the fetishized sub-culture, and so on fixate on
the specific idea of adult men and teenage boys engaging sexually.

While most of the criticism is dismissed as discomfort with “age-gaps”
within relationships, the issue is the cultural celebration of the
exploitation of teenage boys who are incapable of making adult
decisions. More to the point, if the LGBT community is so determined to
expose Christian hypocrisy related to sexuality, it severely needs to
address its own.

There is simply no argument that society should tolerate Singer’s
immoral and illegal activity. But how can one man be criminally
prosecuted and another celebrated on the front of LGBT websites for
identical behavior?

The left is always balancing between indignation and hypocrisy. In
this particular situation, however, they should stick to their
instincts regarding Singer’s behavior and apply it to all adult-teenage
relationships.

As “Queer Eye” star and psychologist Karamo Brown argued regarding
“Call Me By Your Name,” “I know we’re calling [Oliver] a college
student, but it looks like a grown man having sex with a little boy,”
he added. “And for me, I just was not OK with that. And I was like,
‘Why are we pretending like this is OK in any sense, fashion, or
form?’” He continued, “But there is predatory behavior there that I
see, especially in the movie, where Armie Hammer looks dramatically
older than this young man.”

And he is correct. Whether the predator is a closeted youth pastor or a
handsome and charming character in a romance novel, it should simply be
universally accepted that he has no business pursuing teenage boys. All
the indignation the left feels toward the idea of a hypocritical
“anti-gay” pastor, they should channel toward the exploitation of all
minors, regardless of who the abuser is.

The hatred of Christianity within the LGBT community overshadows the
real issue at hand. What matters is that an adult preyed on vulnerable
minors, and the same people shaming him are celebrating this type of
behavior openly in media, pornography, and social progress — as long as
they approve of the politics of the people involved.

: Chad Felix Greene is a senior contributor to The Federalist. He
: is the author of the "Reasonably Gay: Essays and Arguments" series
: and is a social writer focusing on truth in media, conservative
: ideas and goals, and true equality under the law.


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Dems & the media want Trump to be more like Obama, but then he'd
have to audit liberals & wire tap reporters' phones.