Lady Gaga, kiss-ins and It Gets Better

BY NOREEN FAGAN – Lady Gaga is loved by the gays but hated by the Catholics. Her latest single, “Judas,” has thrown the Catholic League in the United States off-kilter and tied their rosaries into knots.

The song is about Judas Iscariot and is sung from Mary Magdalene’s perspective. Wearing nuns’ robes, Gaga swallows the rosary and delivers lyrics that have offended the League’s Christian sensibilities.

The Catholic League’s president, Bill Donohue, called the single a blasphemous stunt, but added that his group would be more offended if Lady Gaga had more talent.

Gaga’s creative director, Laurieann Gibson, came to the song’s defence. Although she admitted it did have some shock value, Gibson said it was “about the inspiration and to never give up… We’ve created a new Jerusalem.”

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The kiss-in held outside a London pub didn’t create a new Jerusalem, but it certainly created a stir.

On Wednesday, April 13, Jonathan Williams and James Bull sparked a media storm when they were asked to leave the John Snow pub in London’s Soho district after they kissed in a booth.

Following two days of a social-media blitz, a kiss-in was arranged, and on Friday afternoon hundreds of people gathered outside the pub and got down to the serious business of kissing. The original plan was to stage the protest inside; the pub owners, however, got wind of the impending event and closed the pub in the early afternoon.

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Last Thursday YouTube yanked an It Gets Better video made by queer folk at Apple. The video was pulled for violating the website’s policy on “depiction of harmful activities.”

Sharing memories about how high school sucked is harmful? Why it was pulled remains a mystery, but on Saturday it was back up on YouTube.

Xtra has been reporting on the Ontario Catholic school boards’ ban on gay-straight alliances; maybe members should watch the It Gets Better videos and just ignore Lady Gaga’s latest.