An infamous gay personality known for his controversial comments about pedophilia has had a 180-degree conversion, given up homosexual sex, defends the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church and has consecrated himself to St. Joseph.
Not a joke. The news broke about a month ago. Not read about it? Well, the story is out there, but mostly conservative sites are reporting on it.
Why is this?
Well, it all has to do with narrative. Let’s start with the New York Post’s read on it:
Right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos has come out as “ex-gay” – announcing that he “would like to help rehabilitate what the media calls “conversion therapy” over the next decade, according to a report.
The 36-year-old British political commentator, whose speeches and writings often ridicule political correctness, social justice and feminism, declared himself no longer gay and “sodomy free,” he told LifeSite in an interview.
Yiannopoulos — who once said that sex between 13-year-olds and older men can be “life-affirming” — told the outlet that he is now leading a daily consecration online to St. Joseph.
“When I used to kid that I only became gay to torment my mother, I wasn’t entirely joking,” he said.
But what about his gay marriage?
As far as his personal life, Yiannopoulos said of his husband: “The guy I live with has been demoted to housemate, which hasn’t been easy for either of us. It helps that I can still just about afford to keep him in Givenchy and a new Porsche every year. Could be worse for him, I guess.”
Now we all know that if a major (or even not-so-major) evangelical figure had gone the opposite direction, the media would be all over it. Look at the coverage that Josh Harris, celeb author of “I Kissed Dating Good-bye,” got when he dumped his faith and was last seen marching in a gay pride parade in Vancouver.
It’s interesting that Yiannopoulos chose to tell a small-ish Christian site about his new beliefs instead of, say, the New Yorker. Here’s how that piece started out:
The famous firebrand activist and now “ex-gay” man Milo Yiannopoulos has detailed the role which St. Joseph has played in his decision to lead a chaste lifestyle, calling him the “perfect person” to turn to.
Yiannopoulos spoke first to LifeSiteNews’s Doug Mainwaring, in an interview which has subsequently spread virally, describing how he arrived at the decision of “‘coming out’ as straight.”
In that process, St. Joseph played a pivotal role. Speaking to Mainwaring, Yiannopoulos mentioned how as the “spiritual father figure of the Holy Family,” St. Joseph seemed the ideal one to turn to. “In this time of gender madness, devoting myself to the male protector of the infant Jesus is an act of faith in God’s Holy Patriarch, and a rejection of the Terror of transsexuals.”
By the way, if you’ve been hanging out in Catholic churches lately, you’d see all the posters about how 2021 has been dedicated by Pope Francis as the year of St. Joseph. His feast day was March 19. And now here’s this activist calling the saint the paragon of godly masculinity. You know, taking on the parenting of a son clearly not his own, protecting the mother from all the village gossips, then figuring out how to bring up this boy, who from day one was clearly cut from a whole different piece of cloth.
Do keep on following this story, as it’s most amusing. The Post has since learned that Yiannopoulos plans to open a reparative therapy clinic somewhere in Florida. An excerpt from that story:
Describing what he called a “Christian renaissance” occurring in the US, Yiannopoulos said fundraising for the effort was taking off considerably, citing a backlash against establishment LGBTQ political activism.
“This has been the easiest thing to raise money for that I’ve ever done. There is an enormous demand for this among people who believe they’ve been led astray by — it sounds silly to call it this — but you know, the gay establishment,” Yiannopoulos said.
“I think part of that is the resurgence of religious, socially conservative, kind of reactionary politics among noisy young conservatives,” he explained, adding that he has “people who are kind of like DMing me now” to ask “‘where do I send the f–king check?’ You know, like, get me in your program.”
This guy is a walking quote machine and would definitely get any publication tons of clicks. Yet, the MSM is pretending this click-friendly conversion didn’t happen. Why?
It’s about what fits the narrative. And gay activists defending reparative or “conversion” therapy — even for adults who choose it — does not fit that bill. If you wonder why so many people despise the media, look no further than this.
Let’s switch to a very different topic, but linked by this “narrative” theme.
Sticking to a news narrative is what made journalists obsess on the Atlanta shooter being a white evangelical male, while coverage of the Boulder shooting has avoided the fact that the shooter, a Muslim, attacked a grocery store that advertised itself as kosher-friendly.
White evangelicals are a popular whipping boy. A Muslim, who was obsessed with Islamophobia, at a grocery store –- not so much.
Don’t believe me? Read this New York Times story about the shooting. It openly wonders what the shooter’s motive was. Hmmm. He drove 21 miles (from Arvada to Boulder) past other grocery stories to hit one that promotes itself for stocking kosher groceries in the week before Passover.
I’ll agree that the anti-Semitic angle isn’t 100% clear, as noted in this Christianity Daily post, but neither was the anti-Asian angle of the Atlanta attacks. But reporters jumped on the racial and religious motivations for those shootings right away.
Narrative came into play again a few weeks ago during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings about the Equality Act.
Little -– if anything -– was said about one of the opponents, Wall Street Journal writer Abigail Shrier being an Orthodox Jew. It would’ve been nice if some mention of her faith was made, in that opponents of the Act are often portrayed as conservative Christians.
Shrier’s presence at the hearing, in fact, was overshadowed by a perky 16-year-old transgender girl from my own state who charmed everyone, including the journalists for whom this teenager did fit the narrative of healthy, happy transgender youth. That is the same narrative in this Tacoma News Tribune story, which has more details about Stella Keating, who transitioned at age nine.
The other side of the transgender issue, represented by Shrier, was not addressed.
Other than getting journalists into these newsrooms who understand the old-school concept of telling both sides of a culture wars story — an idea that has disappeared from much of the MSM these days — I’m not sure what else to do. Those who are in the major media would do good to realize why former President Donald Trump’s anti-journalism tirades appealed to so many people.
When people on one side never get to tell their story, they get angry.