As you read this, the Supreme Court is hearing arguments in the case of “Masterpiece Cakeshop Ltd. V. Colorado Human Rights Commission,” about a Christian baker who refused, on religious and artistic grounds, to create a custom wedding cake for a pair of homosexuals. This is the court’s Hell-sent opportunity to wipe out religious freedom for Christians in America once and for all.
They’re also about to erase artistic freedom, by giving “gays” the power to dictate the content of a work of art. A one-of-a-kind custom wedding cake is a work of art.
As a novelist, this alarms me. Either I plug “gay” characters into my stories, or not be allowed to write any more stories: that’s what I’m afraid of.
But the Colorado Human Rights Commission is already several steps ahead of me. They have hired a medium to interrogate the spirits of dead authors so that their books can be rewritten to conform to the demands of modern pressure groups.
Their first target was the late F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose novel, “The Great Gatsby,” has been called into question by a transgender plaintiff. Here follows part of the transcript of that séance.
“Mr. Fitzgerald, it has come to our attention that in your book, ‘The Great Gatsby,’ you depict all women as having vaginas.”
“I’m sure I never mentioned that.”
“Nevertheless, you imply it—simply by never creating any female character who does not have a vagina.”
“I thought those were called ‘men.’”
“Don’t get smart with us, buster!”
The ghost of Scott Fitzgerald sighs. “All right, I admit I sort of took it for granted that all the women in my book were endowed with female body parts.”
“We’re going to rewrite your book and change that!”
“Go ahead—and then I’ll haunt you.” [At this point, the medium lost contact with Fitzgerald.]
The next deceased writer to be questioned was Kenneth Grahame, author of “The Wind in the Willows.”
“Mr. Grahame, your ‘Wind in the Willows’ has sparked complaints from several oppressed minorities. Were you not aware, as you were writing it, that not one of your various animal characters ever self-identified as a member of a species other than the one assigned to it at birth?”
“By Jove, it never entered my mind! In fact, I don’t think I understand what you’re trying to say to me, sir.”
“Let us explain. Your book would have been much more inclusive, and less hateful, if, for instance, you had written that your Mr. Badger came out of his house one morning and announced that from now on he would self-identify as a female luna moth and was to be addressed as Ms. Luna Moth.”
The ghost of Kenneth Grahame snickers. “Where I come from, anyone who talked like that would wind up in a padded cell.”
“Where you come from, Grahame, is neither here nor there!”
“England, actually. Although my address is currently in Heaven.”
“You can’t stop us from rewriting your book, you know!”
“I also know that if Badger were real, he’d take a large and painful bite out of you for doing that to him.”
This upsets one of the interrogators. “Did you hear that? He just used two archaic and unlawful binary pronouns, ‘he’ and ‘him’—and in the same sentence, no less! I must insist that he be prosecuted!”
“You can’t prosecute me. I’m already dead. And now I think I’ll go back to messing about in boats with Rat and Mole. Ta-ta, old thing!” [The medium loses contact with Grahame.]
“This isn’t working,” complains one of the commissioners. “Can’t we go back to persecuting living authors?”
“The dead ones will change their tune once we start rewriting their books,” replies the chief commissioner. “Remember, we’re re-engineering the world to create a utopia. Who’s next on the list?”
“We have a complaint about Tolkien excluding gay hobbits…”
My nightmare is that this satire will someday turn out to be real.
I have discussed this and other topics throughout the week on my blog, http://leeduigon.com . Stop in for a visit. A single click will take you there.
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E-Mail Lee Duigon: leeduigon@verizon.net
