Like most religious right organizations, the American Family Association is gnashing its teeth at the prospect of the Supreme Court ruling in favor of marriage equality. The AFA fired its latest salvo in the form of a full-page ad that ran in this morning’s edition of The Washington Post. In their rush to get the ad to press, it looks like the AFA forgot one pretty significant detail. They illustrated it with a painting of God that may have been painted by a gay man.
The ad contains a not-so-subtle warning to the Supremes–a vote in favor of marriage equality could not only “delegitimize the very power of the court itself to rule justly,” but could potentially put children and even civilization itself in harm’s way. In essence, it’s nothing more than a repackaging of the same arguments that have been smacked down time and again in the two-plus years since the Supremes effectively neutered the Defense of Marriage Act. That hasn’t stopped the AFA from using this ad for fundraising. It also wants its followers to submit the ad to their area newspapers as well.
The real news, though, is that the AFA used Michelangelo’s famous depiction of God from the Sistine Chapel ceiling to illustrate the ad. When freelance journalist Joe Sudbay heard about the ad from David Baldash of The New Civil Rights Movement, he couldn’t help but notice a potentially glaring oversight on the AFA’s part.
@davidbadash don’t forget, that image AFA uses was painted by a pretty well known gay artist https://t.co/ifzKUpZo9j
? Joe Sudbay (@JoeSudbay) March 24, 2015
Most historians and scholars believe that Michelangelo was gay. Indeed, much of his work contained subtle references to same-sex temptation. In a 2010 book, Italian art historian Elena Lazzarini argued that Michelangelo’s second most-famous work, “The Last Judgment”–which is on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel–was full of gay imagery. According to Lazzarini, the detailed renderings of naked male bodies almost certainly came from his visits to gay brothels. When it was first unveiled, the Vatican condemned it as indecent and obscene, and later commissioned another artist to paint over the more explicit portions. Seems that AFA president Tim Wildmon overlooked this tidbit when he gave the go-ahead for this ad.
How ironic–in its effort to derail marriage equality, the AFA is using a picture that was painted by someone who may have actually been gay. And even without that to consider, it’s using the work of an artist who, had he been around in our time, would have likely been condemned by the AFA as a smut peddler. Then again, such little things as facts never got in the way of a good old-fashioned campaign of hate.
