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• Father John Misty puts is the show at First Avenue. Review by Ann Treacy with photos by Meredith Westin.
• Noah Baumbach on Frances Ha, Greta Gerwig, and Roger Ebert. Interview by Jim Brunzell III.
• Todd Rundgren brings the unexpected to the Varsity Theater. Review and photos by Patrick Dunn.
Basilica Block Party boycott: Standing for equality, or barking up the wrong tree?
As I write this on June 16, over 8,500 people are "attending" the Facebook event Say NO to the Basilica Block Party, an organized protest against the Catholic Church's position opposing gay rights. Since annual attendance at the outdoor music festival is in the vicinity of 25,000, if that number actually represented 8,500 lost ticket sales, it would be a huge blow to the event. Co-sponsor Cities 97 tells the Star Tribune, though, that ticket sales aren't suffering.
"We seem to be caught in the crossfire," the station's Lauren MacLeash tells the Star Tribune, which also reports statements from the Basilica denying that any BBP income funds the Church's political lobbying. "People are barking up the wrong tree," says MacLeash.
That's disingenuous. BBP income is earmarked for facility renovation and charitable outreach, but as blogger Nicole Burg tells MinnPost, "If the Archdiocese wasn't spending all that money on DVDs (in support of the amendment [banning gay marriage]), it could use the money to renovate the Basilica."
I was raised Catholic, attending Catholic schools from kindergarten all the way through 12th grade. I certainly had some great teachers and made some lifelong friends, but I'm no longer a practicing Catholic, and I don't make financial donations to the Catholic schools I attended. If I had children, I wouldn't send them to Catholic school—for a number of reasons, but prominent among them is the fact that my children would be taught that some of our best friends are going to hell for being in love.
The Daily Planet will cover the Basilica Block Party with a review and, perhaps, photos. (Our originally scheduled photographer has asked to be excused from the assignment.) It's an important, newsworthy community event. I wrote our review of the event last year, and would attend again as a reporter, though due to other conflicts I won't personally be covering the event this year.
The Catholic Church has always been part of the bedrock of Twin Cities culture, and that's not going to change any time soon. I have a lot of Catholic friends and family members, and I appreciate all the good that the Church does though its charitable outreach programs feeding the hungry and housing the homeless. But I don't think that protesters are "barking up the wrong tree" when they refuse on principle to buy tickets to the Basilica Block Party. The Catholic Church and our ultraconservative Archbishop Nienstedt are actively campaigning to etch inequality and intolerance ever more deeply into our state laws, and no one associated with the Basilica Block Party should be surprised that those ugly chickens are coming home to roost.
Above: Weezer fans at the 2010 Basilica Block Party. Photo by Jay Gabler.
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Jay Gabler (jay [at] tcdailyplanet [dot] net, Twitter @JayGabler) is the Daily Planet's arts editor.
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Comments
Boycott? HELL YES!!
Don't buy into this catholic church hogwash that none of this money is going to the pope!! The money raised at this event WILL wind up helping to fund the anti human rights amendment!! Now it's time for the religious hypocrites and run of the mill, brain dead haters to fully understand that bigotry HAS CONSEQUENCES!! Post a list of all the bands that will be attending and promoting this event, contact them or their agents to let them know that you will refuse to buy ANY of their paraphernalia and/or albums and/or patronize them in ANY way possible if they attend this event! Let's not make the pedophile church or their TAX EXEMPT stooge organization NOM any more richer than they already are!! "Nuff said!!
Rock on - or in this case, don't rock on...
You can't have your consecrated host and eat it too - or is my Catholic theology so weak that they do allow the host to be both eaten and uneaten? In any case, yep, it's the same Archdiocese that runs the Basicila party that is fighting to put straights-only language in the constitution. I agree that they're interrelated, and I hope that there's some educational protesting going on this year to let attendees know the consequence of thier concert dollars.
Another great article, Jay.
Open Letter on the Citizenship of Jason Wermager
The Facebook effort of Jason Wermager is not about religion. Read his words carefully and it is easily deduced his effort is about CITIZENSHIP, about who defines the boundary of citizenship, about who is included in citizenship and how to actively participate in citizenship. I laud his effort.
First, and foremost, whether pro or con, we share citizenship. We all are subject to traffic laws, we all are subject to taxation laws, we all exist as citizens under a common constitution intended to be without distinction for gender, race or creed.
The Archdiocese via the personage of Nienstedt is financially supporting the ballot measure to give definition to the term marriage along with NOM and many other undisclosed contributors. The Archdiocese anticipates a weekly parishioner tithe of 10% yet can only find it in its magnanimous christian heart to yield 5% to the poor. The edifice is clearly more important than the poor and needy when it comes to cash flow. Ask yourself where the weekly tithes go if not for the upkeep of the edifice. Some undisclosed fraction of the weekly tithes flows directly to the Archdiocese and ultimately to the papacy in Rome. (not to mention the legal fees to cover the undisclosed abusers within the churches ranks) And finally on the subject of the celibate church leaders defining marriage I resort to a line from the late 1970’s, “You no playa’ da game, you no maka’ da rules.”
Marriage is a legal construct. A license to marry endows rights under tax law, property law and other legal arenas. The state allows churches the ability to marry; it does not work in the other direction. Churches do not grant legal constructs to the state.
It is my opinion, as the father of a gay, now dead, citizen soldier son that the Archdiocese has absolutely no business attempting to define the boundaries of citizenship. So long as marriage exists as a legal construct of two parties, then this citizen contends it is fair game whether inter-gender or intra-gender parties enter into marriage.
Citizen Jason, thank you for exercising your rights.
Sincerely,
Jeff Wilfahrt, father of CPL Andrew Wilfahrt, 552nd MP Company, KIA, Kandahar, Afghanistan, 2-27-2011
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