Deiter Bonnehoffer, the totally famous anecdotalist, said:
First they came for me, but I fought them and they ran away.
Then they came for the gay guy next door, so I had to go help him because if they're going after people it isn't right.
Then they tried going after women; and that was the end of it because we beat the shit out of them and they ran away and haven't been seen since.
It's very simple, though any number of people cannot figure it out even when one explains it to them: one cannot be a universalist and a relativist. Either all cultures are equally valid for those who belong to them and within their own context and ya ya, or there is a universal standard of morality and Human rights. It can't be both at the same time.
I'm pretty well qualified to write on gay films, being a big fan of Rock Hudson / Doris Day movies. But I defer. The following piece is about yet another gay porn star, not Rock Hudson, neither is it about Doris Day. It's really about you, dear reader. What kind of society do you want to live in? There's really no room in a sharia state for Rock and Doris.
I've written about this before, but it's important to cover and I bring a bit more to the story as it unfolded, this being foreground, and
this being aftermath.
Not your typical gay pornographer
Meet Michael Lucas: smut merchant, neo-con pundit, outspoken Zionist and scourge of America's gay intelligentsia
This was not what Patrick Cordova had bargained for. The Stanford junior, a member of the school's student government, had wanted to host a lecture on sexual health. And he figured that a provocative and fun way to tackle the issue would be to bring a prominent pornographer to speak on campus. So Cordova sent out some invitations. The first person he heard back from was Michael Lucas -- longtime porn actor and director of such films as Hunt & Plunge, The Bigger The Better, and Fire Island Cruising (editions one through eight). A fixture in New York nightlife and head of his own production company, Lucas is one of the biggest names in gay porn. His 2006 epic La Dolce Vita had a $250,000 budget, which Lucas says makes it the most expensive porn film in history. The movie garnered best-picture honors at the annual GAYVN Awards, the Oscars of gay porn. (It also garnered a lawsuit from the company that controls the rights to the original Fellini film.) New York magazine has dubbed him the "last of the New York porn moguls."
Lucas -- a staunch advocate of safe sex who, unlike some porn directors, uses condoms in his movies -- sounded like exactly the kind of guest speaker Cordova had in mind. "We were hoping that people would embrace his ideas on sexual identity and sexual health," Cordova told me. But, after Stanford had already booked him, controversy erupted. Some students felt that Lucas shouldn't have been invited to lecture. By the day of his speech, the storm surrounding Lucas had made its way into the pages of The Stanford Daily, where organizers found themselves defending the invitation against the protests of their outraged peers.
What had provoked such heated debate? It wasn't Lucas's porn. It was his politics. Lucas, it turns out, is a fervent supporter of Israel and a harsh, often offensive, critic of the Muslim world.
He has called the Koran "today's Mein Kampf" and regularly inveighs against Muslim homophobia and anti-Semitism in less-than-charming terms. "It totally escapes me how gay people can side with burkawearing, jihad-screaming,
Koran-crazed Muslims," he opined last year.
At the talk itself, which took place this past Valentine's Day and drew an audience of about 50, Lucas stuck to his guns. "What's the point to respect their culture, or supposed culture, when they have a strong contempt for mine?" Lucas asked. And he wasn't content to leave it at that. The day after he spoke, he published an op-ed in The Stanford Daily responding to the charge that he is racist. "I never in my life said or wrote a bad word about Arabs -- go read any of my articles," he explained. "My criticism was always addressed towards the religion and ideology of Islam. So I would like to ask Stanford students not to exploit the word 'racism' at their own convenience."
The Stanford controversy wasn't an isolated incident. Over the past few years, Lucas has developed a side career in political commentary to go along with his more lucrative day job. He frequently updates his blog with thoughts on world affairs, writes a regular op-ed column for The New York Blade (a gay newspaper), and has feuded with the popular, liberal gay blog Queerty. "I would be better financially if I didn't open my mouth," he tells me. And, yet, Lucas can't seem to help himself.
[....]
You wouldn't know it from watching his movies -- which are apolitical -- but Lucas has opinions on everything. He is a fan of conservative columnist David Brooks and the late right-wing icon Oriana Fallaci (though he acknowledges her homophobia), thought the Iraq war was a bad idea ("the wrong target"), considers the press soft in portraying Islamist terrorism ("it's very upsetting that they don't allow people to see the beheadings"), loves Nicolas Sarkozy ("I think Marc Jacobs told me that Sarkozy went to synagogue") and hates Jimmy Carter ("this f--king peanut farmer"). While he originally disagreed with Russia's brutal policies toward Chechnya, he now believes that America could learn something from Vladimir Putin. "The American army can't take Fallujah?" Lucas asks me, incredulous. "Level it!"
[T]he true objects of his ire are gay liberals whom he sees as overly sympathetic to the Arab side in the Arab-Israeli conflict.
[....]
That's a gross understatement. Last year, in his Blade column, Lucas hailed gay artist Charles Merrill's decision to burn a rare copy of the Koran, estimated to be worth $60,000, and, in a subsequent radio interview, called the Koran an "absolutely evil book."
[....]
The Financial Post (No longer freely available.)
http://wildersnews.blogspot.com/2008/03/michael-lucas-geert-wilders-of-usa.htmlThe false dichotomy of Left and Right is becoming increasingly idiotic in our time, and to witness the contortions people go through to pretend it's a meaningful distinction is too painful for me. The event went as well as one might have expected at Stanford. Below are some comments from the
Stanford Daily referred to above.
A comment from the Stanford Daily from the high-flying:Wilburite on 2/14/08 at 3am Man, this is a juicy one.
Guess what, the gay porn star is right! In some Islamic countries, areas under Sharia Law require the death penalty for homosexual men and women. It is beyond obvious that, in the name of Islam, homosexuals worldwide are treated like crap. See the following: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_laws_of_the_world
www.ncr-iran.org/content/view/222/69/
What great irony that some clueless members of a GAY campus group are giving in to pressure from those who don't like the Michael Lucas comments. Very foolish. Is this where the left-wing, P.C. push on campus has led us?
This Michael Lucas actually sounds like a real ballsy guy....
One of m. de Sade' favorites, I assume:
Justine on 2/14/08 at 11am
It seems like Q and A and the Muslims on campus prefer to believe what they want to believe, instead of believing what is obviously fact. Sharia law and Muslim countries make homosexuality a serious offense. Iran execute people for it, and its President denies that gays exist in his country. Muslims can't seem to take any critique of their religion or their theocracies.
A man named (very suspiciously):Dave on 2/14/08 at 1pm I am actually impressed at the generally intelligent commentary here. Way to go, Stanford. Mr. Lucas is in my opinion a very exciting commentator on the subjects of Jewishness and Gayness as it intersects with Fanatical Islam. He calls it as he sees it with passion and authority that a few "activists" couldn't possible bring to the table. The hypocrisy of some on the left as it applies to the subject of tolerance in Israel versus intolerance in much of Muslim culture is something I have had to confront in my own (liberal) family. I find it scary because it is a historical fact that the Fascists in Germany similarly had the support of many otherwise cultured and "liberal" people. The strange intersection of racism, totalitarianism and left-ism is a fundamental aspect of much Fascism, in my opinion.
A page from the life of:Brian on 2/14/08 at 1pm I agree. It is funny to see what leftists do when the people they defend without thought (such as radical Muslims) want to eliminate them or other groups they support (Gays). You can be sure that if a Caliphate were established in Europe or US, as many Muslim leaders desire, there would be no gay pride parades, gay marriages, or gays period.
http://daily.stanford.edu/comments/2008/2/14/adultFilmStarsRemarksSparkDebate
The French Revolution ended a while back, and since then the distinction between Left and Right has pretty much meant not a thing at all. Nevertheless, fashion dictates one use the terms as if they do mean something. Me and my paisley shirts, my bell-bottom pants, my love-beads and peace sign, I don't get that part. Fashion is for others. Geert Wilders is soon to release his short film, Fitna, and he is risking death not only at the hands of fascist Islam but is at risk from fascists on the Left, as it were, not different from fascists on the Right, so to say. First they came for the gay porn stars, then they came for the Dutch filmmakers and politicians. No, that's backward, isn't it? First they killed Pim Fortuyn and then they killed Theo van Gogh. They'll come for you someday, and who'll care? Maybe me if I'm still around, but will you care?
It's not a matter of Left or Right. It's a matter of fascist or democrat. It's a matter of being Rock Hudsons and Doris Days and the conflicts that brings to ones personal life in the physical world, or it means one is tormented by dhimmitude and death by murder.
See you at the movies. While we can still see them.
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