During the last week, it has been nearly impossible to go anywhere in Stephenville without hearing something about this play. Everyone seems captivated by the ramifications of such a presentation. Worse yet, the controversy seems to have grown in the national news with piles of speculation and a gross misunderstanding of the facts. Even our own college newspaper misrepresented the facts surrounding this play.
1) This was not a University sponsored play. This was a homework assignment where the director was responsible for choosing the play as well as holding auditions for cast and crew.
2) The theme of this play centers around acceptance and the idea that religion can be open to the homosexual community, or in the author’s own words, “Unconditional love should be unconditional.”
3) The plot is a parody of the Biblical Jesus story. A parody, by definition, is a satirical imitation of a serious piece of literature. The purpose of a parody is to bring to light certain ideals that may or may not be apparent in the original literature. In the case of this play, the parody is saying that religion can be open to the homosexual community.
Word of this play’s presentation as Tarleton University sparked an uproar of anger from the religious community. They responded with a violent assault on the University. The school answered thousands of hate filled phone calls, endured threats of violence against the cast and crew, and watched as thousands of petitions and furious emails poured in from across the country. The state of fear escalated as the Ku Klux Klan threatened to join their religious counterparts in the picket lines outside of the University theater.
I’m sad today to have to tell you that violence is a stronger tool than acceptance. All of the plays were canceled at the last minute and a semester’s worth of work, by every student involved in the Corpus Christi play and all of the others that were set to be presented, was wasted.
The student director for this play has stated that he is disappointed but certainly never wanted his presentation to lead to anyone being injured. It’s impressive to see such a student turn the other cheek in the face of violence and hate. Though frightening is the willingness of so many to threaten violence against youth in order to demonstrate their conviction.
After all of this, school starts back on Monday and they have avoided bloodshed in our halls of higher learning. They have also done well to teach us that the limits of our freedom is the length of an enemy’s stick, the skill to manifest fear, and the capacity to turn so much hate towards youth.
