Queering everything
That august journal of American history, Out Magazine, recently reported: “Colonial Williamsburg was a lot queerer than we were led to believe.” This bold assertion was made in an article titled, “Colonial Williamsburg Is Uncovering America’s Hidden Queer History.” It’s true. Sort of. The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation is endeavoring to reveal America’s supposedly long, if sadly hidden, LGBTQ history.
Colonial Williamsburg Gender and Sexual Diversity Research Committee (CWGSDRC?) member Ren Tolson says that much has been discovered and that the foundation will soon begin rolling out programs, the first of which will be a dramatization of the “Ladies of Llangollen,” an allegedly true story about two 18th-century women who were reputedly engaged in a romantic relationship.
After providing such exhaustive and overwhelming evidence of early American queerness, Out Magazine proudly concluded, “It turns out we were always here and queer, we were just kept out of the history books.” (So sad. Tragic, even. Perhaps Paul Revere actually said, “One if bisexual, two if binary, and I on an opposite whore will be!”)
The truth is that, for years now, the Left, in general, and a radicalized faction of the LGBTQ community, in particular, have been engaged in an all-out attempt to queer everything, and not just through strident educational curricula and “drag queen story hours” for kids as young as four or five. They literally preach a Queer Theology.
In 2010 a book titled, “Queering the Text: Biblical, Medieval, and Modern Jewish Stories” was published. And colleges and universities have offered courses such as “Queer Theory and the Bible,” which instruct students to read the Bible “through queer theory.”
Many students apparently like these courses and laud their schools for the “academic freedom to teach courses on challenging and potentially controversial subjects.” Yeah, right. We’re probably not going to see a course titled “Queer Theory and the Koran” anytime soon. Freedom has its limits.
However, we might well see courses titled “Queering Stalingrad” or “Queering the Killing Fields.” Revisionist scholars and LGBTQ activists may work together to launch an entirely new series of “queering” books. Look for “Queering War and Peace,” “Queering Romeo and Juliet,” “Queering the Gulag Archipelago” and “Queering Atlas Shrugged” to be available soon.
“Queer Theory and the Gettysburg Address” won’t be far behind, and “Queering the Bass Pro Catalog” will follow shortly thereafter.
I don’t want everything to be cast entirely in terms of heterosexuality, either, though without it none of us would be here. Live and let live. But must everything be made queer?
Apparently so.
How queer is that?
Image: Colonial Williamsburg by Humberto Moreno. CC BY 2.0.
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