Sinners and Saints: A Mardi Gras showdown
DRIVING CROSS-country gives you a lot of time to think. You can put miles between you and any insignificant relationship woes. You can master the state capitals. You can become acquainted with the history of "meat showers" in some of our finer states.
But, most noticeably, you can glimpse the warring worlds of conservatism and excess as you buckle in and make your way through the Bible Belt. As you leave the comforts of the Northeast, you go from seeing highways littered with billboards for adult entertainment and sex stores to passing hillsides covered with giant crosses hailing the wrath of an angry god down upon your eco-friendly Prius.
One stretch of road in western Kentucky had me preparing to perish if I didn't repent and change my sinful homosexual ways. "Hell is real," one sign screamed, the "H" painted in flames just in case it wasn't clear. "Jesus Saves," read another, within miles of a billboard listing several of the 10 Commandments. Then there was my personal favorite, a message from our holy pen-pal: "Talk with me. I love you. Jesus."
We saw an 18-wheeler named "The Other Woman" stopped at a gas station that sold vanity plates informing people that "The 10 Commandments are not a multiple-choice question." Next to it was another plate featuring a large set of breasts stuffed into a Confederate-flag bra. This is, apparently, what rednecks call "Dixie Cups."
Roadside attractions along a barren stretch of Texas highway included a sign claiming abortion goes against the Hippocratic oath; a billboard for a gentleman's club called Plantation; and an ad for micro-surgical vasectomy reversal. (Apparently you must drive backward on that bit of road in order for the advertising to be effective.) And - this is the God's honest truth - all this takes place shortly before you reach a town called Turnaround, Texas. That's in case you missed Run For Your Fucking Life, Alabama.
But nowhere is the battle between the saint and the sinner more pronounced than in the city that care forgot: New Orleans. And Mardi Gras, naturally, is the showdown, when both camps come out in all their costumed glory. It is, after all, the last day of debauchery before the onset of the sacrificial period of Lent.
The thing that's interesting about Mardi Gras is that there's no distinction between the people at whom the religious zealots take aim. At gay pride parades, they target the homos. At Planned Parenthood clinics, it's the "baby killers." At Mardi Gras, it's anyone with a sinful strand of beads slung around their necks.
One banner included the following in its list of people going to hell in a handbasket: "party animals," "two-faced people," "pot-smoking little devils," "pencil neck weak-kneed gutless men," and "sports nuts," the latter of which featured little stick figures of a tennis player and a downhill skier. Poor Martina Navratilova, damned on so many levels.
Nearby, a man stood holding a banner that read, "The blood of Jesus washes away your sins." Just feet away, a strip club featured images of lathered women, beckoning potential customers to "Wash the girl of your choice." Sin. Cleanse. Repeat.
A more moderate message was spread by the strip club that warned visitors: "Bottomless. If nudity offends you ... don't come in."
The Mardi Gras revelers certainly didn't miss the opportunity to take potshots at the religious, either. In a gay bar, a man dressed as a nun asked me to take his picture stuffing $1 bills into a male stripper's G-string. Talk about a bad habit. A man dressed as a priest tried to lure me into another bar by dangling his giant fake penis toward me. Maybe it's the recovering Catholic in me, but I always find these costumes funny on some level.
I'm certainly not someone who spends her energies shouting against the messages echoing from the megaphones of martyrs. Nor would I waste my entire Mardi Gras like one man did, standing beside the proselytizers with a sign reading, "I'm with stupid." I guess my greatest act of defiance was to walk right past them into a throbbing gay bar and celebrate the faltering campaigns of both an evangelical and Mormon presidential candidate on Super Tuesday.
Besides, there are far worse sins being committed at Mardi Gras, about which people should be up in arms. Fat women raising their shirts. Little Asian girls burning their fingers stringing beads that get washed into the gutters with beer. Women over 50 flaunting their implants. Drag queens walking the streets shoeless with runs in their stockings. Where is the outrage?
In recounting my Mardi Gras experiences to my dad, I told him about a snapshot that I took from a balcony overlooking Bourbon Street. It was of a group of middle-aged gay men sporting auburn wigs and pink T-shirts emblazoned with the same slogan. "It said, ‘Suck it, Jesus!' " I told him. "Jeannie," my father scolded, stifling a laugh. "It's Ash Wednesday!"
He should know that it's been a hell of a lot longer than 40 days since I quit caring. @
Jeannie Greeley is a freelance writer getting 40 miles to the gallon. She can be reached at jeannieg@comcast.net.
[Illustration by Corey Smigliani]
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