Avenue Q is a Tony-winning musical about people and puppets trying to find their way in New York City. Though inspired by the style of Sesame Street, the show deals with “adult situations” like sex and drinking, and one of its most popular songs is “The Internet is for Porn.” The musical is now coming to conservative Colorado Springs, but a billboard executive in the city has banned a promotional poster showing puppet cleavage because the company wants to take a more “conservative approach.” Colorado Springs is home to right-wing organizations like Focus on the Family and has become “a base from which the evangelical movement launches initiatives that affect civic life across the nation.”
You have to know that it’s going to be a good day when you jump on da Interweb and the first headline you see is:
PUPPET CLEAVAGE TOO HOT FOR THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT IN COLORADO SPRINGS
Jeebus, y’all…is there NOTHING that Right-wing Christians won’t take offense over? If there’s a more joyless collection of intolerant drudges dragging their knuckles across the Earth, I’ve yet to see them. Puppet cleavage? Really? Is there truly nothing else that these folks can twist into something offensive and anti-Christian? We’re talking about puppet cleavage, ferchrissakes. Seriously, how big a threat to our collective moral fiber is puppet cleavage?
Sadly, there are a large number of so-called “Christians” who spend their lives in various states of uproar over insults to their beliefs and sensibilities whether real or imagined. That these self-righteous sorts are as much about the teachings of Jesus Christ as Jeffrey Dahmer was about vegetarianism seems to be lost on most everyone. These self-righteous “Christians” are so wrapped up in expressions of their own piety and holiness that they’ve lost sight of the teachings of the man they profess to revere and follow. Their faith has morphed into cover for their own fear, ignorance, and reaction…and their intolerance is exceeded only by their willingness to indulge their prodigious sense of outrage.
What’s so refreshingly entertaining, of course, is the degree of self-parody in which these uber-pious zealots unwittingly engage in. I mean, we’re talking about puppets, ferchrissakes…. ;-)
And then there’s the obvious and, until know, heretofore unacknowledged world-class silliness inherent in the outrage over puppet cleavage:
Hold the phone people. If we’re going to start censoring puppet’s naughty pillows (ironically made out of some of the same materials as actual pillows), there is another culprit that’s been appealing to our prurient interests since 1969.
Kermit the Frog has been appearing sans clothes for decades. Hope he’s not planning a vacation to Colorado Springs anytime soon, or they’ll run his little green ass out of town! And check out the pair on Miss Piggy — sheesh! The people of Colorado Springs apparently can’t handle a puppet decolletage. Has no one in that town has ever seen “Jersey Shore??”
There are so many things to which these intolerant zealots could positively devote their prodigious energy and outrage, so many causes they could make a positive impact on. Sadly, instead of trying to live Christ-like lives, they sit in judgment of non-believers on issues that range from the ridiculous to the sublime. They could make a difference, but they deem it more appropriate to obsess over things like puppet cleavage.
And you wonder why I have such significant problems with modern Christianity. I mean, we’re talking about puppet cleavage, ferchrissakes…. ;-)
