Selfish Hedonist

In keeping with my pledge to give up Bush Porn and the Outrage Fatigue that is its inevitable result, and instead stick with optimistic things about how great things are in the world and stuff, I hereby bring you Happy Post #1:

Group fights funds for Gay Games

By Lorene Yue
Tribune staff reporter
Published August 4, 2005, 10:53 PM CDT

A conservative Christian organization wants the Illinois Bureau of Tourism to keep public funds away from the 2006 Gay Games in Chicago.

The Illinois Family Institute of Glen Ellyn has called on its supporters to persuade the state tourism department to deny a request for a grant from organizers of the sporting event. The Gay Games VII, a quadrennial-sporting event conceived in 1982 to help promote self-esteem in the gay community, will take place in July at various sites in Chicago.

"We're opposed to the use of taxpayer dollars to promote an event that celebrates homosexuality," said Peter LaBarbera, executive director of the institute. "The idea of using sport to promote homosexuality is wrong."

Oh, Illinois Family Institute. Will you ever win??

This is truly great news. Not only is IFI doing everything in their power to give publicity to the Gay Games, which will help boost crowds and participation throughout the region, country, and world, but they're completely discrediting themselves at the same time! It's a twofer!

Hmm, perhaps Peter LaBarbera really secretly wants the Gay Games to succeed beyond anyone's wildest expectations, and thus have thousands upon thousands of in-shape (and often scantily clad) men descend on various venues in Chicagoland. Because, think about it. I mean, knowing that it's illegal in Chicago to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, if the Board of Tourism were to heed IFI's call and deny the gays funding simply because of the gayness factor, it would cost the City a significantly larger amount of money to defend that crap in court. So they'll definitely be getting that grant now, I think.

The other thing that makes me smile about this new IFI/GG06 post is how IFI puts "quotation marks" around certain "words" in their press releases.

ACTION: Tell the Illinois Bureau of Tourism not to spend one dime of your taxpayer money to promote the "Gay Games"--an athletic contest for homosexuals that will be held in Chicago next July. IFI has received word that Gay Games organizers have applied for a state grant to run ads urging homosexuals from across the nation and presumably the world to come to Chicago for these Homosexuality "Games."

They always do stuff like that. Gay "marriage" for instance. It's really "hilarious" and quite "surreal."

So, cheers to the Illinois Family Institute for bringing a little more joy to all of us!

(Honestly, these guys should have been at the Second City Classic this past weekend. There was such debauchery as me drinking a "beer" after the match. Also, at one point I showered without wearing any "clothes." Seriously, though, some of the doubles teams did have matching shirts. That was pretty damn "gay.")