Gazing upon the gays
Father O' Callaghan and I were sitting down to breakfast one morning. I was having my toast (lightly buttered on one side, a subtly decadent hint of marmalade on the other) when suddenly there was a loud exclamation from him. "Jesus Christ!" he shrieked. "Where?" I shouted back at him.
At this point he had leapt out of his chair and was doing a jig on the floor. He was snarling about something in the newspaper he'd just been reading. "They've found a penguin!" he exclaimed. "Where?" I replied again. He stabbed the paper with his forefinger. He was red-faced and spluttering. "It's not a matter of where" he yelled "it's a matter of what." He fixed me with a look of utter dread. "They've found a gay penguin" he said.
You know those moments when it feels like someone is speaking to you from far away? Like when you're on the pulpit and a very small person with a weedy little voice is saying something that you can't quite hear because they're at the back of the church with their placard and the private security firm you've hired is just about to pounce on them? Well I had one of those moments right there and then. It took me a few minutes to recover to ask him the full details. It seemed some scientists had discovered a gay penguin. Now we knew straight away what this meant. It meant the aggressively liberal violently gay agenda would be hopping on their favourite scientific hobby horse and using it as a stick to beat the church with. "Look at what science has shown us" they'd say. "Gayness is a natural inherited genetic trait" they'd say, and then they'd fold their arms and get all smug.
Well Father O' Callaghan and I knew who would get the last laugh. It would be the Church, naturally. Because whatever science says, and it says a lot of foolish things, everybody knows that gayness is learned behaviour. That's right, learned. The danger of course is in how easy it is to learn such behaviour. Privately funded Church studies have shown that it's not as easy to learn as your twelve times tables, but, frighteningly, it's actually easier to learn than your five times tables. I don't have to "lay it out for you" as to why this is dangerous for society as a whole, but I will guide you to a Church pamphlet entitled The Gay Apocalypse, and what it means for You. The final page recounts the terrible final scenario for mankind as we know it.
A hill overlooking a city in ruins. Filthy black smoke drifts into the sky. There are sporadic fires in the distance. All is silent. We hear panting, and two men climb into view. This is Adam and Steve. Both are filthy and streaked with baby oil and dust. Yet we can tell they're still trying to take care of their appearance. Adam is wearing an ascot and cut off jeans. Steve is wearing a ridiculously tight t-shirt with flecks of silver. ADAM: It's over, Steve. It's finished. We destroyed the world with our degenerate gay ways. Now we are the only surviving creatures upon the planet.
STEVE: All of those virtuous and noble religious people were right. We turned everyone gay. And because everyone turned gay no one made babies anymore.
ADAM: Although there was that ill advised attempt by science to create children in laboratories.
STEVE: Yes, but science says a lot of foolish things, and makes lots of promises it can't keep.
ADAM: Oh Steve, I would hold you now, but the end of everything has shown me the sin and folly of my disgusting gay lifestyle. Adam falls to his knees. He pounds the ground with his fists, throws back his head and screams (like a girl) at the heavens. He sobs for a while. Then stands up with his head bowed in penitence. STEVE: What do we do now?
A penguin waddles over the brow of the hill. It stops beside them. Adam looks at the penguin. Steve looks at the penguin. The penguin looks at Adam and Steve. PENGUIN: Quack? Adam and Steve look at each other and smile their lascivious gay smiles.
Disco music plays.
Adam, Steve, and the penguin dance.
As you can see, gayness as learned behaviour can have terrifying consequences, and its influence is almost impossible to fight even when one is faced with the dreadful import of one's own sin. For a while both Father O' Callaghan and I wondered aloud how this poor penguin had been made gay. As he so rightly pointed out to me, perhaps it was in observing Antarctic explorers that our poor flightless friend had been affected. "No doubt it was two misguided souls. Probably polar scientists who had been led by isolation and the cold to find perverted comfort in each others arms. At night they probably divested themselves of their protective clothing, and thus unburdened they probably oiled each others...."
At this point I will confess I stopped listening. Although Father O' Callaghan did go on for some time, and in some detail. In a sense I suppose it is always good to know thine enemy. And after about half an hour of this, and the crying, he eventually stopped and we reflected on what we had learned. "At least there are no gays in the church" he said, his chin wobbling with emotion. And I smiled and said "Yes. There is that comfort."
