Attacking The LGBT Marching Band

You may have heard that in a historic first for our community, an LGBT marching band will perform in Barack Obama's inauguration parade. Predictably, the wingnuts are going crazy. Yesterday the Catholic News Agency published a story that links the marching band to the "infamous lewd public acts" at Southern Decadence - because the band will also perform there.

President-elect Barack Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden have officially invited the Lesbian and Gay Band Association to march in the Inaugural Parade. One of the association’s web sites reports that the group will also march in September as part of the homosexual “Southern Decadence” festival infamous for its public lewd acts.

The web site reports that the LGBA conference will be held as part of Southern Decadence and Decafest. The site links to the Southern Decadence festival, which has often been targeted for protest because of its extreme indecency. In 2003, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported that it had “become routine” for men to flash their genitals and perform public sex acts at the event, which bills itself as “the Gay Mardi Gras.”

“The city's wildest neighborhood gets even crazier as the French Quarter is packed for the entire event,” the Southern Decadence festival’s current web site says. In its Frequently Asked Questions section, the web site tells those with “an interest in the adult film business” that a pornographic filmmaker will be in attendance.

Watch out for those exposed tromboners! Not to mention the skin flutes!