They’re still wrong.

I just finished reading James Shapiro’s The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606, and I highly recommend it, especially if you are like me a huge fan of Lear.

A passage near the end jumped out at me:

[discussing the declining fortunes of the boy companies of London at the time] Another and now nearly fatal blow to [the Children of the Revels’] fortune came in November 1606, when they were ordered to stop recruiting boy players from among the ranks of child choristers, since “it was not fit or decent that such as should sing the praises of God Almighty should be trained up or employed in such lascivious or profane exercises.”

Well.

Here are some modern day choristers of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, the same group that fed into the theatre company Paul’s Boys back in the day.

Who could possibly want to train up or employ these precious innocents in lascivious or profane exercises? Everyone’s moral alarms should be blaring CODE RED at such an idea.

Why, it’s outrageous — it’s disgusting — it’s… GROOMING, KENNETH!

Dale, I hear you ask, are you claiming that today’s handwringers and Moms for “Liberty” and rightwing screechers are pulling the same stunt as the god-bothering Puritans from 400 years ago?

Yes, yes I am.

That is a link to coverage of the high school in Fort Wayne, IN, that had its production of Maid Marian canceled because the god-bothering Puritans of that fair city objected to its LGBQT characters. LASCIVIOUS AND PROFANE, KENNETH! (The kids are all right: They rallied support and $84,000 to put on the play independently. The house was packed.)

I get it. The god-botherers have sincere religiousy beliefs about what is LASCIVIOUS AND PROFANE, KENNETH,[1] and they are determined that the rest of us are not going to celebrate Christmas be anything but righteous, upstanding Puritans ourselves. Because otherwise… well, I’m not sure what they think is going to happen, other than that great fear of Puritans everywhere, that someone, somewhere, might be happy.

At any rate, they’re still wrong.

Happy Pride Month!

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[1] I do not include the scum and villainy now known as the Republican Party as having sincere religiousy beliefs. Those people do not believe in anything except using divisive topics to scare the amygdala-based lifeforms into voting them into power.

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