Another Year of Folsom Street East in New York - Another Year of Perversion on Parade

The Big Apple displays some rotting parts

You wouldn't know it from the mainstream media in New York City, but last Sunday (which was also Father's Day) Folsom Street East -  "NYC's premiere sado/masochist-leather-fetish themed street festival" - took place on 23rd Street between 10th and 11th Avenues in Manhattan. Participants in Folsom Street East did not lack for ways to express themselves, remaining just shy of the full-nudity mark, wearing sadomasochistic paraphernalia or by the messages on their t-shirts.

WASHINGTON,  DC (Catholic Online) - You wouldn't know it from the mainstream media in New York City, but last Sunday (which was also Father's Day) Folsom Street East -  "NYC's premiere sado/masochist-leather-fetish themed street festival" - took place on 23rd Street between 10th and 11th Avenues in Manhattan.

While given a pass by the media, the East Coast version of San Francisco's Folsom Street Fair, now in its 14th year, showcased sexual perversion of every kind for the crowds of enthusiasts and curious onlookers that visit the six-hour event.

While estimates in previous years put the crowd in the thousands, due to intermittent rain and thunderstorms, this year's numbers were significantly smaller.

A New York volunteer, who has gone to the event in the past to gather evidence for Americans For Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH) and other groups, told Catholic Online that the organizers published some limits for behavior this year, which included:

• No public sexual activity
• No complete public nudity
• No exposure of genitals
• Alcohol is restricted to designated areas only, consumed by adults 21+
• Adequate space must be cleared and prior consent must be given by all participants in any demo or "scene."
• No demo or "scene" involving blood or other fluids will be permitted, even with consent.

Our contact also indicated that, although these limits represented NYC statutes, they were never enforced in the past.

Last year, for example, one event featured a man with genitals exposed, tied to a St. Andrew's cross, being "electro-tortured" by another man wielding a remote control device.

When AFTAH questioned police after last year's event, authorities indicated that they normally do not monitor private "block parties" but, due to citizen complaints, they will be stricter in issuing a permit to "Folsom Street East" organizers next year.

This year we received an quick email from the contact just after the event stating, "It was tame today, I mean tame. (For the) majority of it, no cops around and NO nudity. Shocking, I know."

Even with published restrictions seemingly being followed, the reports we also received indicated that the displays and behavior of the exhibitors and many attendees still demonstrated a level of depravity the average human being could never imagine.

Participants in Folsom Street East don't seem to lack for ways to express themselves, remaining just shy of the full-nudity mark, wearing sadomasochistic paraphernalia and by displaying perverted messages on their t-shirts.

When reporting on this event, so dedicated to debauchery, I was reminded of the verses from the first chapter of St. Paul's letter to the Romans, where he wrote,

"Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man-and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.

"Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

"For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due."(Romans 1:22-27)

Later, the apostle puts the spotlight on hope, the only hope upon which anyone caught in sin can rely.

"For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 6:20-23)

As our culture continues to sink more deeply into sin, our only hope then is Christ and His Church. Regarding the latter, our Lord is ruthlessly purging her of those base things and immoral acts which lie hidden beneath the surface, that as the spotless bride she might provide the moral compass needed in this world.

Folsom Street East is only one of many exhibitions worldwide that underscore the serious spiritual climate in which we live. So, let's pray as we do at the end of Morning and Evening Prayer, "May the Lord bless us, protect us from all evil and bring us to everlasting life."

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Randy Sly is the Associate Editor of Catholic Online and the CEO/Associate Publisher for the Northern Virginia Local Edition of Catholic Online (http://virginia.catholic.org). He is a former Archbishop of the Charismatic Episcopal Church who laid aside that ministry to enter into the full communion of the Catholic Church.

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