Fox Radio's "fundamentalist barking dog" Todd Starnes has finally scored a culture war victory. His constant vigilance against affronts to Jesus loving, homo hating America has finally paid off in that the U of Tennessee pulled state funds from a student event intended to educate and empower students on issues related to sexuality. (Tennessee, I know, pretty radical!). As soon as culture clubber Starnes found out about it, he posted an article on his Fox webpage. Starnes devoted a chunk of his report to the fact that one of the event's speakers is a "noted lesbian bondage expert and erotica author." He then provided lots of information about this woman who was just one of a number of speakers. But then when it comes to leather, we know that Starnes really gets into his subject matter as shown by his observations of male thongs and leather chaps at his local gay pride parade which, according to Starnes, was attended by "angry lesbians," so there's that too....
While the event covers a broad range of sexual topics, Starnes' headline focused on just one thing: "University of Tennessee Uses Student Fees to Host Lesbian Bondage Expert." Despite the nomenclature of "sex week," the event is hardly an orgiastic Caligula style bacchanalia. Some of the workshops feature discussions on safe sex and sexual identity issues. STD testing is part of the program. But that didn't impress Starnes who featured the most salacious topics at the beginning of the article: "There are 30 events planned including “Getting Laid,” “Sex Positivity; Queer as a Verb,” “Bow Chicka Bow Woah,” “How to Talk to Your Parents About Sex,” “Loud and Queer,” and “How Many Licks Does It Take…” – a workshop about oral sex"
Todd provided his readers with details about Sinclair Sexsmith who is "an expert in sexuality and leather." Starnes gave us information about Sexsmith's website, "Sugarbutch Chronicles: The Sex, Gender and Relationship Adventures of a Kinky Queer Butch Top." But, as Starnes also reported, she would not be "engaging in lesbian bondage demonstrations" during her visit to the school; but rather, doing a poetry workshop exploring sexuality and gender roles in society. Starnes made sure to work in the quote from the event's website about how Sexsmith will be instructing students on how to "turn up the heat on our own sex drive" and, according to Starnes, "play with gender and sexual identity roles and butch/femme roles."
Anyway, as reported on "Raw Story," Starnes article got the attention of a bunch of Christian blogs and GOP State Senator Stacey Campfield who threatened to jam up the school's budget if they didn't do something about sex week. The school didn't cancel the event but pulled the state funding. But the event will proceed with the assistance of state funds.
Todd Starnes should check out this sex week because there is a workshop titled "The Birds, the Bees, and the Bible." As a good Christian, I would think that would be up Todd's alley so to speak. Poor Todd, always on the lookout for, as expressed in an amazingly perceptive and witty comment on Raw Story, "a queer and pleasant danger."