If you’ve ever thought about drumming up a tidal wave of mockery and negative coverage about your supposed cause that’s already bleeding support year after year, you might be tempted to take a page from the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus.
“We’ll convert your children”. Even if it were meant as a joke for shock-value it kind of deviates from the decades-old insistence that being gay isn’t a choice.
The “song” continues,
“You think we’re sinful, you fight against our right, you say we all lead lives you can’t respect. But you’re just frightened, you think that we’ll corrupt your kids if our agenda goes unchecked. Funny, just this once, you’re correct. We’ll convert your children, happens bit by bit, quietly and subtlety and you will barely notice it, you can keep them from disco, warn about San Francisco, make ’em wear pleated pants, we don’t care… we’ll convert your children… we’ll make them tolerant and fair.”
Like nearly every high-profile, politically tinged video with a message that has corporate backing and support in Washington, the official video was removed by the uploader after being ratio’d into oblivion. The video, which had been titled “A Message From the Gay Community” and was dotted with registered sex offenders in its cast, proclaimed that the children of those opposed to the since corporatized ideologies of the queer community would, in essence, be assimilated into their movement. Not the best of optics or memetic foresight.
The superb tone-deafness of this act has resulted in near-universal panning from viewers regardless of politics. Critics’ attitudes ranged from disgust, affirmation at having their views of the queer community largely vindicated by the video (assuming it isn’t a joke), and irritation at the exposure of what was supposed to be a covert operation.
While it is difficult to assess the motivation behind this “song” – whether it was meant to be satirical or an outright admission of an agenda – what is clear is that it was a failure. Whatever the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus sought to achieve (unless it was to make themselves look bad) can now be countered tens of times over with the mere circulation of the video. While “A Message From the Gay Community” may no longer be available on its original channel, saved copies and clips are springing up in droves.
It’s going about as well for them as “Buck Breaking” did for BLM.