Agree, but let's not kid ourselves that there weren't some sharply political messages. The routine with the linemen on utility poles was a commentary on the destruction of PR's power grid by Hurricane Maria, to which Trump's only response was to throw rolls of paper towels at people. PR is still struggling to restore reliable power. The blinking lights and flying sparks referred to the constant power outages since then.
I’m going to give you the gay man’s perspective once again.
Why am I, a fairly ordinary gay man*, such a threat to conservative Christians, conservative macho men, religious macho men? Why am I such a threat to masculinity? Why am I such a threat to heterosexuality, so much so that my very existence can bring down mighty empires, destroy the Holy heterosexual Family, destroy marriage?
The real question is, why does my existence cause so much fear, cause so many lies to be told?
And the answer is just what you said: they are soft and weak. I am a threat to conservative Christianity by my very existence, because it shows that conservative Christianity is yet another lie. I am a threat to masculinity because even though I am defined as the opposite of masculinity, I am obviously quite masculine. And in my younger days I could probably take on anyone and hurt them badly. Right wing Christians were desperate to keep me out of the military, because they could never decide whether I was a simpering, limp wristed fairy, a psychopathic hirsute muscle man. Or a psychopathic, hirsute muscle man in a pink tutu. How does my marriage threaten anybody’s marriage? How can my life, lived freely in the sunlight, threaten the holy heterosexual family? How can my family do that? And if heterosexuality is exactly as how the Christian god made us, if it is normal, natural, so deeply engrained in all of humanity, genetically required— howcan I possibly even exist, let alone convince heterosexual people to become homosexual?
The answer again and again and again is that they are soft and they are weak. They are easily frightened by the stories they tell themselves. and they want everyone to be as deeply frightened as they are, and all for the usual reasons….
Power, money, and religious dominion. And at the age of Trump, revenge. And to reassure themselves that they are in fact real men and real women, when it is clear to me that there is nothing that is so much in doubt as that.
Because that is one of the real issues here: THEY ARE DEEPLY AFRAID OF THEMSELVES, WHO THEY ARE, WHAT THEY WANT. Homo-hating homos are some of the worst people on earth, and they hide out in conservative religion like the MAGAts/maggots that they are, desperate to deflect attention from themselves and onto innocent others. As I have commented many times, they constantly project their worst qualities onto innocent people. IF you google LGBT and sexual abuse, you will get a few hits every year. But google clergy and sexual abuse, you will get hundreds of thousands of hits.
Google boy scouts and sexual abuse, the hits just keep on coming. FOr decades, the scouts tried to blame gay men for their sexual abuse crisis. BUT WE WERE NOT ALLOWED TO BE MEMBERS OR SCOUTMASTERS. only men known to be heterosexual by their families, wives, communities, churches— and above all, THEMSELVES— were allowed.
Soft and weak.
* well, to be fair, neither my husband or my mom think that I’m a fairly ordinary gay man, but I don’t wanna brag.
Last week, there were SEVEN professional Christians—ministers— who were arrested, convicted, or sentenced for sex offenses against children— in my news feed. Five of them were on one day. FIVE!!!!
Also, over the weekend: William “Bill” Carns, a former Nye County Republican Central Committee chairman, was recently arrested on multiple offenses, including child pornography and weapon possession charges.
Carns allegedly posted this a Xitter: Bill Carns @BillCarns1-1/9/25
“This story demonstrates the mental illness, known as "woke liberalism", still exists and forewarns of its negative devistation caused when sufferers obtain elected office.”
That didn’t age well.
He also posted this with a picture of a noose: “ IF WE WANT TO MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN WE WILL HAVE TO MAKE EVIL PEOPLE FEAR PUNISHMENT AGAIN.”
As someone neither gay nor married, I was always pissed off because me and the married guy in my office working the same job for the same pay and he pays a lower effective tax rate than I do because of a LIFESTYLE CHOICE (to get married) he made. Because we’ll (probably) never settle the argument about whether someone is born gay or not (because people are stupid), but for damn sure nobody is born MARRIED.
That said…
W-a-a-a-y back in 2012 when my state passed (and subsequently had struck down) its so-called “marriage protection amendment” I tried making the point that if your marriage falls apart because two consenting adults that you don’t even KNOW get married somewhere in the state, the problem isn’t them — it’s YOU. If your marriage was that fragile it was already doomed, and you’re just looking for somebody else to blame it on. Also, over 50% of marriages already end in divorce. And up to now (then) only straight people have been allowed to get married. So if you’re looking for a way to save marriage as an institution, maybe put your own damn house in order.
And a little thought experiment on the whole “won’t somebody think of the CHILDREN??” business. I tell ‘em take out your phone. Open your browser to your search engine of choice and enter the phrase “youth pastor sex scandal”. When you’ve cleaned up that shit, get back to me about how drag queens reading boos to kids is so dangerous.
(Personally l think Wanda Sykes put it best when she said “Until a drag queen busts into a school and beats 12 eight year olds to death with a copy of ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’, I think ya’ll are focusing on the wrong shit.”)
I 100% agree with you. Thank you for your support.
What I always like to point out is not only what you point out, which I bring up a great deal, but also the child beauty pageants. Do you—the homophobe Christian— really want to discuss the sexualization of children? Then let us talk about four-year-olds with fake breasts struttin’ their stuff for the delectation of heterosexual men. They are huge profit machines, and a favorite activity in the Christian South.
It is revolting beyond belief, especially when you factor in the constant accusations directed a gay people which, as you pointed out, have very little basis in reality.
Beautifully stated, Ben. I've thought this for a long time - all these men horrified by gay men are in fact terrified of themselves. I'd be sorry for them if they didn't hurt so many people with their fear.
I have been dealing with religious homophobes for over 50 years. One thing that never ceases to surprise me, as much as it doesn’t surprise me at all, isn’t that when they are discussing gay people, they really only discuss gay men. And the first place they go when they discuss gay men is anal sex – long and loving descriptions, very detailed, about how much they just hate hate hate hate hate it and are disgusted beyond disgusted at the very thought of it .
And my response is always the same: if it bothers you so much, why do you keep discussing it, why do you keep thinking about it, why can’t you see us as anything other than your own sex fantasies walking in the flesh?
Another one you’ll almost never get an answer to goes like:
Them: Gay people are an abomination! It says so in Romans!
Me: Putting aside for the moment that this was Paul talking not Jesus and they never actually met in the three dimensional world, does the Bible not also teach that all of us were made in God’s image?
Them: Yes… (I’m getting side eye at this point because they know something’s coming, just not what yet)
Me: So if an infallible, omnipotent omniscient God made us all, then he made all those pay people you hate, correct?
Them: He didn‘t make them gay!
Me: Then what did?
Them: They did! it’s a lifestyle choice!
Me: So, mere humans can decide to … not be made in God’s image then?
Them: They have free will!
Me: I see. So, God gave us free will so that we could make our own choices about how we live.
Them: Yes!
Me: And you think that was a bad idea — an “abomination” I think you said. Are you smarter than God?
This is usually where the penny drops, and it can go several ways from there. I just let them sit with that and hope it planted a seed. But I rarely get to see it sprout (if it ever does).
The standard answer for them is that everyone sins, and yes they are smarter than God. It is the essence of religious megalomania— God always agrees with them. God loves them more than anyone else.
Of course! How can you be a good Christian and hate people, unless God tells you to hate them. And if the God you worship looks like you, and the God that your obey sounds just like you, well that’s just icing on the cake.
I watch the French news. They praised the halftime show and touted its message. Spent 10 seconds talking about the MAGA halftime that spent the time propping up the authoritarian regime. They see what we all see.
And it really does boil down to racism. There have been other “non-American” Super Bowl halftime performers.
I appreciate this. As I was watching Bad Bunny’s brilliant show last night, I was thinking that anybody not on either Team Left or Team Right must be looking at all those right-wing MAGA nut jobs now and marveling at how ridiculous they are—shaking with rage at hearing Spanish on their TV for 14 minutes while stuffing their outraged faces with guacamole, tacos, and tequila.
Say it again, for those in the back that might have missed it.
These people are not just soft, they're losers.
They're the ones that frame everything as zero-sum: if they don't get exactly what they want at every given moment, it's a "loss" for them and a "win" for someone else. Really? Everyone on the left decided that a Bad Bunny halftime show was a "win" for them?
No, everyone on the left didn't see it that way (though the counter programming of highlighting Puerto Rico in its native language was noted). It's these guys that see EVERYTHING as an example of domination or submission.
I don't care if it's exhausting to go through life this way- that's on them. Not us.
But here's the bottom line- MAGA thinks that "they" are really the country and that the country is really "theirs." That's what happens when you belong to long dominant demographics and are used to seeing your tribe dominate everything- politics, business, the media, etc.
We are in the middle of a decades-long process where everything is no longer mostly pale and male (and "Christian"). The rest of us are okay with that, including white guys like me.
It's these guys that are full of flop sweat about "losing" something every time an out-group or minority makes headway. All these years Puerto Ricans never felt compelled to put on their own halftime show. However, let the Super Bowl halftime show go to a Puerto Rican that performs in Spanish and the weak feel the need to have "their own American" halftime show, lest some other group get the spotlight for 15 minutes at "their expense."
Weak. Soft. And with constantly backing Trump as their Daddy and avatar of privilege, losers.
I loved the half time show. It was a view of the America that is not showing up enough, the joyful, loving, dancing, marrying, America that brings splendid pleasure to all of us. It made me laugh and pay attention to what we are missing.
I agree with the joyful, loving, & dancing comments, but marriage is a serious joining of two adult lives into one as they prepare to raise the next generation! So whether in a church or a hall, same sex or opposite sex, it was never meant to be entertainment or a half-time show1
Weird! I love that way to describe them. I enjoyed this half time show more than any other I've seen: the music, dancing, love and enthusiasm were infectious. No wonder MAGA didn't want to watch. They might have found themselves swept up in it all. As to not understanding the lyrics, I ask you: How often do you make out all the lyrics to songs sung in English?
Mike - this is one of the most insightful, descriptive and accurate portrayal of Trump and Maga. I have tried to express your viewpoints but sadly cant match you. Hopefully you dont mind if i plagiarize some of your sentiments
Yeah, yes, it was a cultural show that was meant to highlight the inequality rampant in the Americas. His message at the end was clear love is the only thing stronger than hate. The various aspects of the show were meant to highlight the positive contributions, lifestyle, and values of Latino people. It would have been nice to have an English translation for sure. I was trying to take it all in visually instead of listening to the words more carefully. And I speak Spanish. I have also not understood other halftime shows, including those highlighted by white people from time to time. I respect their creativity, diversity, and much needed messages, especially in this tumultuous and very difficult challenging time.
I agree that subtitles would have helped me, but one of the points of the performance was, for just a moment in time, to NOT CENTER the needs of the majority.
Beautiful essay!!! And IMHO, Bad Bunny's show was absolutely awesome and a touch of much-needed exciting sanity!
I enjoyed it a lot!
Agree, but let's not kid ourselves that there weren't some sharply political messages. The routine with the linemen on utility poles was a commentary on the destruction of PR's power grid by Hurricane Maria, to which Trump's only response was to throw rolls of paper towels at people. PR is still struggling to restore reliable power. The blinking lights and flying sparks referred to the constant power outages since then.
I don't watch sports but watched the halftime show on You Tube last night. So much fun!
THIS! Great article, Mike!
Thanks Laurie!!
I’m going to give you the gay man’s perspective once again.
Why am I, a fairly ordinary gay man*, such a threat to conservative Christians, conservative macho men, religious macho men? Why am I such a threat to masculinity? Why am I such a threat to heterosexuality, so much so that my very existence can bring down mighty empires, destroy the Holy heterosexual Family, destroy marriage?
The real question is, why does my existence cause so much fear, cause so many lies to be told?
And the answer is just what you said: they are soft and weak. I am a threat to conservative Christianity by my very existence, because it shows that conservative Christianity is yet another lie. I am a threat to masculinity because even though I am defined as the opposite of masculinity, I am obviously quite masculine. And in my younger days I could probably take on anyone and hurt them badly. Right wing Christians were desperate to keep me out of the military, because they could never decide whether I was a simpering, limp wristed fairy, a psychopathic hirsute muscle man. Or a psychopathic, hirsute muscle man in a pink tutu. How does my marriage threaten anybody’s marriage? How can my life, lived freely in the sunlight, threaten the holy heterosexual family? How can my family do that? And if heterosexuality is exactly as how the Christian god made us, if it is normal, natural, so deeply engrained in all of humanity, genetically required— howcan I possibly even exist, let alone convince heterosexual people to become homosexual?
The answer again and again and again is that they are soft and they are weak. They are easily frightened by the stories they tell themselves. and they want everyone to be as deeply frightened as they are, and all for the usual reasons….
Power, money, and religious dominion. And at the age of Trump, revenge. And to reassure themselves that they are in fact real men and real women, when it is clear to me that there is nothing that is so much in doubt as that.
Because that is one of the real issues here: THEY ARE DEEPLY AFRAID OF THEMSELVES, WHO THEY ARE, WHAT THEY WANT. Homo-hating homos are some of the worst people on earth, and they hide out in conservative religion like the MAGAts/maggots that they are, desperate to deflect attention from themselves and onto innocent others. As I have commented many times, they constantly project their worst qualities onto innocent people. IF you google LGBT and sexual abuse, you will get a few hits every year. But google clergy and sexual abuse, you will get hundreds of thousands of hits.
Google boy scouts and sexual abuse, the hits just keep on coming. FOr decades, the scouts tried to blame gay men for their sexual abuse crisis. BUT WE WERE NOT ALLOWED TO BE MEMBERS OR SCOUTMASTERS. only men known to be heterosexual by their families, wives, communities, churches— and above all, THEMSELVES— were allowed.
Soft and weak.
* well, to be fair, neither my husband or my mom think that I’m a fairly ordinary gay man, but I don’t wanna brag.
Here’s a little addendum to my posting.
Last week, there were SEVEN professional Christians—ministers— who were arrested, convicted, or sentenced for sex offenses against children— in my news feed. Five of them were on one day. FIVE!!!!
Also, over the weekend: William “Bill” Carns, a former Nye County Republican Central Committee chairman, was recently arrested on multiple offenses, including child pornography and weapon possession charges.
READ MORE: lvrj.com/post/3615450
Carns allegedly posted this a Xitter: Bill Carns @BillCarns1-1/9/25
“This story demonstrates the mental illness, known as "woke liberalism", still exists and forewarns of its negative devistation caused when sufferers obtain elected office.”
That didn’t age well.
He also posted this with a picture of a noose: “ IF WE WANT TO MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN WE WILL HAVE TO MAKE EVIL PEOPLE FEAR PUNISHMENT AGAIN.”
Well I’m sure he didn’t really mean himself.
As someone neither gay nor married, I was always pissed off because me and the married guy in my office working the same job for the same pay and he pays a lower effective tax rate than I do because of a LIFESTYLE CHOICE (to get married) he made. Because we’ll (probably) never settle the argument about whether someone is born gay or not (because people are stupid), but for damn sure nobody is born MARRIED.
That said…
W-a-a-a-y back in 2012 when my state passed (and subsequently had struck down) its so-called “marriage protection amendment” I tried making the point that if your marriage falls apart because two consenting adults that you don’t even KNOW get married somewhere in the state, the problem isn’t them — it’s YOU. If your marriage was that fragile it was already doomed, and you’re just looking for somebody else to blame it on. Also, over 50% of marriages already end in divorce. And up to now (then) only straight people have been allowed to get married. So if you’re looking for a way to save marriage as an institution, maybe put your own damn house in order.
And a little thought experiment on the whole “won’t somebody think of the CHILDREN??” business. I tell ‘em take out your phone. Open your browser to your search engine of choice and enter the phrase “youth pastor sex scandal”. When you’ve cleaned up that shit, get back to me about how drag queens reading boos to kids is so dangerous.
(Personally l think Wanda Sykes put it best when she said “Until a drag queen busts into a school and beats 12 eight year olds to death with a copy of ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’, I think ya’ll are focusing on the wrong shit.”)
I 100% agree with you. Thank you for your support.
What I always like to point out is not only what you point out, which I bring up a great deal, but also the child beauty pageants. Do you—the homophobe Christian— really want to discuss the sexualization of children? Then let us talk about four-year-olds with fake breasts struttin’ their stuff for the delectation of heterosexual men. They are huge profit machines, and a favorite activity in the Christian South.
It is revolting beyond belief, especially when you factor in the constant accusations directed a gay people which, as you pointed out, have very little basis in reality.
Beautifully stated, Ben. I've thought this for a long time - all these men horrified by gay men are in fact terrified of themselves. I'd be sorry for them if they didn't hurt so many people with their fear.
Thank you, that’s exactly what I feel about it.
I have been dealing with religious homophobes for over 50 years. One thing that never ceases to surprise me, as much as it doesn’t surprise me at all, isn’t that when they are discussing gay people, they really only discuss gay men. And the first place they go when they discuss gay men is anal sex – long and loving descriptions, very detailed, about how much they just hate hate hate hate hate it and are disgusted beyond disgusted at the very thought of it .
And my response is always the same: if it bothers you so much, why do you keep discussing it, why do you keep thinking about it, why can’t you see us as anything other than your own sex fantasies walking in the flesh?
I almost never get an answer to that.
Another one you’ll almost never get an answer to goes like:
Them: Gay people are an abomination! It says so in Romans!
Me: Putting aside for the moment that this was Paul talking not Jesus and they never actually met in the three dimensional world, does the Bible not also teach that all of us were made in God’s image?
Them: Yes… (I’m getting side eye at this point because they know something’s coming, just not what yet)
Me: So if an infallible, omnipotent omniscient God made us all, then he made all those pay people you hate, correct?
Them: He didn‘t make them gay!
Me: Then what did?
Them: They did! it’s a lifestyle choice!
Me: So, mere humans can decide to … not be made in God’s image then?
Them: They have free will!
Me: I see. So, God gave us free will so that we could make our own choices about how we live.
Them: Yes!
Me: And you think that was a bad idea — an “abomination” I think you said. Are you smarter than God?
This is usually where the penny drops, and it can go several ways from there. I just let them sit with that and hope it planted a seed. But I rarely get to see it sprout (if it ever does).
The standard answer for them is that everyone sins, and yes they are smarter than God. It is the essence of religious megalomania— God always agrees with them. God loves them more than anyone else.
And hates all the same people they do.
Of course! How can you be a good Christian and hate people, unless God tells you to hate them. And if the God you worship looks like you, and the God that your obey sounds just like you, well that’s just icing on the cake.
I watch the French news. They praised the halftime show and touted its message. Spent 10 seconds talking about the MAGA halftime that spent the time propping up the authoritarian regime. They see what we all see.
And it really does boil down to racism. There have been other “non-American” Super Bowl halftime performers.
You got it. Cosplaying tough people cowering from the animosity of a failing, old man is no way to live life.
Mike, I would suggest that "weak" is a much more appropriate word. "Soft" can be nice at times, but "weak" never is.
Boom! Hal, you absolutely nailed it!
“Cosplaying tough people cowering from the animosity of a failing, old man is no way to live life. “
I appreciate this. As I was watching Bad Bunny’s brilliant show last night, I was thinking that anybody not on either Team Left or Team Right must be looking at all those right-wing MAGA nut jobs now and marveling at how ridiculous they are—shaking with rage at hearing Spanish on their TV for 14 minutes while stuffing their outraged faces with guacamole, tacos, and tequila.
Ha! Brilliant!
Say it again, for those in the back that might have missed it.
These people are not just soft, they're losers.
They're the ones that frame everything as zero-sum: if they don't get exactly what they want at every given moment, it's a "loss" for them and a "win" for someone else. Really? Everyone on the left decided that a Bad Bunny halftime show was a "win" for them?
No, everyone on the left didn't see it that way (though the counter programming of highlighting Puerto Rico in its native language was noted). It's these guys that see EVERYTHING as an example of domination or submission.
I don't care if it's exhausting to go through life this way- that's on them. Not us.
But here's the bottom line- MAGA thinks that "they" are really the country and that the country is really "theirs." That's what happens when you belong to long dominant demographics and are used to seeing your tribe dominate everything- politics, business, the media, etc.
We are in the middle of a decades-long process where everything is no longer mostly pale and male (and "Christian"). The rest of us are okay with that, including white guys like me.
It's these guys that are full of flop sweat about "losing" something every time an out-group or minority makes headway. All these years Puerto Ricans never felt compelled to put on their own halftime show. However, let the Super Bowl halftime show go to a Puerto Rican that performs in Spanish and the weak feel the need to have "their own American" halftime show, lest some other group get the spotlight for 15 minutes at "their expense."
Weak. Soft. And with constantly backing Trump as their Daddy and avatar of privilege, losers.
I loved the half time show. It was a view of the America that is not showing up enough, the joyful, loving, dancing, marrying, America that brings splendid pleasure to all of us. It made me laugh and pay attention to what we are missing.
I agree with the joyful, loving, & dancing comments, but marriage is a serious joining of two adult lives into one as they prepare to raise the next generation! So whether in a church or a hall, same sex or opposite sex, it was never meant to be entertainment or a half-time show1
Yes, you called it! The joy in the halftime show was wonderful. What's wrong with joy?
Weird! I love that way to describe them. I enjoyed this half time show more than any other I've seen: the music, dancing, love and enthusiasm were infectious. No wonder MAGA didn't want to watch. They might have found themselves swept up in it all. As to not understanding the lyrics, I ask you: How often do you make out all the lyrics to songs sung in English?
Bravo. I watched the Bad Bunny Halftime Show..and I don't speak Spanish. But it was joyous. So. Your comments are spot on.
History, colonialism, resistance, culture of Puerto Rico—all in one short amazing performance. Joy yes, and also deeper, serious themes. Outstanding.
Mike - this is one of the most insightful, descriptive and accurate portrayal of Trump and Maga. I have tried to express your viewpoints but sadly cant match you. Hopefully you dont mind if i plagiarize some of your sentiments
Just quote him & give him credit!
Fantastic piece!! Let's go, let's mock'em, resist'em and throw them the hell out!!!
Yeah, yes, it was a cultural show that was meant to highlight the inequality rampant in the Americas. His message at the end was clear love is the only thing stronger than hate. The various aspects of the show were meant to highlight the positive contributions, lifestyle, and values of Latino people. It would have been nice to have an English translation for sure. I was trying to take it all in visually instead of listening to the words more carefully. And I speak Spanish. I have also not understood other halftime shows, including those highlighted by white people from time to time. I respect their creativity, diversity, and much needed messages, especially in this tumultuous and very difficult challenging time.
I agree that subtitles would have helped me, but one of the points of the performance was, for just a moment in time, to NOT CENTER the needs of the majority.
Love this Great Basin Roo! Thanks good 👍🏻
Has no one said a word about Netanyahu's visit on Wednesday for the 6th time in just over a year? Super bowl is over. lets move on.
I didn't see that