Charlotte 1996 redux: Zealot wants ‘Reefer Madness’ banned
by Matt Comer Editor editor@goqnotes.com
Published: October 12, 2010 in Blog
Queen City Theatre Company updated its fans on Facebook yesterday and shared a vitriolic email it received from one of Charlotte’s beloved, “gentle” and “loving” Christians.
The parent was a little more than upset (“pissed” might be a better word) that her child (without her knowledge, of course) went to see the company’s production of “Reefer Madness,” a musical comedy and satire that takes on issues of religion and drug use.
He or she writes, in part (via QCTC Facebook):
“I always am careful about the media items that my children come in contact with, and what they should stay away from. I have raised them in a God fearing household, and promote the Lord our God in our everyday lives. I thought that I was able to protect my children from the perverse natures of this world at least until they were old enough to think for themselves”
“My son came home Saturday night and told me that he had gone with two of his friends to see your theater play Reefer Madness”.
“I can’t believe that you would dare to bring such garbage to the stage. He told me that it instructs the viewers on how to smoke marijuana, and that it also has an actor portraying Jesus”
” I looked up your website, and am not surprised to see that you promote the gay agenda in Charlotte, and that this is just your latest work to try and force it on our children”
“I am more horrified that he now thinks that drugs can be a fun thing to do since he saw people laughing, singing, and dancing about it. Do you not feel any responsibility to the trash your bring to Charlotte?”
“This sort of program should not be able to go on in Charlotte. Queen City Theatre Company is promoting smut and laughing at Jesus Christ our Lord.”
“I have spoken to not only my own Pastor and his family about this play, but have emailed and called several organizations such as The Coalition of Conscience, Religious Tolerance.org, and several other ministry’s and Watch Tower’s in the Charlotte area which I hope will help in closing your mockery down”
This is all starting to sound very familiar. 1996 “Angels in America” controversy, anyone?
Luckily for Charlotte and its gays, Joe Chambers, the pastor who led that horrific display of bigotry back in the day, is as old as a dinosaur now. I doubt we’ll see him taking a stand for much of anything. But, I wonder, will Michael Brown or Flip Benham take up the fight? There’s got to be better things for them to do with their time than fight a musical.
And Brown and Benham say us queers are the intolerant ones (aww, the poor Christians with really nice clothes, nice cars, big ministries and churches and supposed direct lines to the Almighty are always getting picked on! So sad!). I mean, we aren’t the ones trying to shut down someone else’s spotlight on the stage. Hell, we are the ones in the spotlight. Why would we want to tamper down our own egos?
But, you know, us gays and theatre are like two peas in a pod. After all, if the ho-mo-sek-shuls are involved it must be evil, right?
QNotes explores two urban homes and gardens in our "Springtime in the City" issue, plus news on openly gay candidates, legislative updates and regional news from the Carolinas and abroad.
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Sigh…how about those of us who are Christians and do theatre? Who have friends who happen to be gay and think that’s perfectly fine. Who think a play like “RM” shouldn’t change anyone’s thinking because it’s so over the top.
Both sides weary me to be honest.
Break a leg on the run.
Sigh again. How about this lady go to the source of why her son was there in the first place? It seems she is in a state of contempt. For those that do not understand fully how contempt works, it simply covers shame when one takes personal blame or blames something else for the reason they are upset. I would like to challenge this lady to see the play to get a better understanding of how her son could have concluded what he did. Then she and he could actually step into an intimate mother child space to choose a perspective that serves both their best interest. Trashing QCT at this point is serving the role of “victim” and clearly lacks a level of maturity. Seems she is casting that stone that others in front of Jesus “honestly” could not do.
Triple Sigh! Well, I am raising my children in a Chritian home and encourage both of them to be men of integrity and to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and my older son is gay. How silly to think that one has anything to do with the other! Naive you say! Maybe, but I would put my son’s value system up against the boy mentioned above any time. This boy most certainly knew that his Mother would be vehemently opposed to his seeing a show with the title “Reefer Madness”! Did he think he was going to see something about the sea? I highly doubt it! He clearly hatched a plan and acted horrified by the whole thing to play on his Mother’s sympathy and get himself out of the trouble he knew was coming his way. Queen City does many different types of shows and while I am sorry to say that I did not see Reefer Madness, the quality of what I have seen in the past has always been very good. I am not sure just how someone can criticize and get so worked up over something they did not even see.
Kudos to all the previous comments, especially Lisa’s! I have worked with QCTC in either a backstage or soundboard capacity for almost a year now, and all the cast and crew had the exact same thought-this kid knew darn well his mother would never let him see a show titled “Reefer Madness”. Why he chose to ‘fess up to it after the fact is a mystery, unless she found his ticket stub and he had to do some fast thinking to try to get himself out of trouble. Seems her ire, as mentioned in a previous post, is merely a deflecting of her own guilt and anger at her son’s behavior. Since I have yet to witness any patron FORCED to attend our shows, and he clearly got there without Mommy’s help, shows he is either rebelling against her or trying to muster up some independence. Poor kid is my thought, how in the world is he going to function as an adult without his mom there to think for him?
Sometimes I agree with that saying, “God save us from your followers”! Of course all Christians are not like this woman, she is unfortunately one that paints the rest with the zealot’s brush.