An “artistic” performance involving drag during the Olympics’ opening ceremonies has spurred intense backlash.
After a parody of Leonardo Da Vinci’s famous painting ‘The Last Supper’ was featured during the Olympics opening ceremony on Friday night, the Paris 2024 organizers issued an apology to Catholics and other Christian groups. The reenactment included drag queens, a transgender model, a naked singer portraying the Greek god of wine, Dionysus, and a child.
Paris 2024 president Tony Estanguet said, “The idea was to really trigger a reflection.”
Well, you succeeded in triggering something… worldwide outrage.
Anne Descamps, spokesperson for Paris 2024, mentioned during a press conference that the opening ceremony’s focus was to “celebrate community tolerance.”
I think it is safe to say people are getting tired of being told that we must celebrate debauchery in the name of “tolerance.”
Fitness guru Jillian Michaels posted on X: “Dear fellow gays… We demand tolerance and respect but then make a mockery of something sacred for over 2 billion Christians. This type of hypocrisy and lack of understanding is a bad look. We get outraged when the extreme right bashes us, but then we do this shit. What kind of reaction do you think they will have towards the LGBTQ+ community after this. This is NOT how we break down barriers it’s how you build them.”
Italy’s deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini criticized the scene, calling it insulting and “sleazy.” He said, “Opening the Olympics by insulting billions of Christians across the world was a really bad start.”
Here’s what House Speaker Mike Johnson had to say about it:
“Last night’s mockery of the Last Supper was shocking and insulting to Christian people around the world who watched the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. The war on our faith and traditional values knows no bounds today. But we know that truth and virtue will always prevail. ‘The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.’ (John 1:5),” he posted.
As extensively covered by The Dallas Express, drag has come under fire in Texas for allegedly being “derisive, divisive and demoralizing misogyny,” at least according to one university president who canceled a drag show that was supposed to be held on his campus.
Anyway, here’s some of what Fox News reported on the controversy:
Prominent Catholic leader and evangelist Bishop Robert Barron rebuked the opening ceremonies of the Summer Olympics in Paris this week for “mocking this very central moment in Christianity.”
Barron, the head of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester in Minnesota and viral Catholic influencer, posted a video to X Friday lamenting the startling display of drag queens posing as Christ and his apostles at the Last Supper that was part of the opening ceremony of the summer games in the French capital.
“What do I see but this gross mockery of the Last Supper,” Barron told his more than 285 thousand X followers on Friday.
Barron told Fox News Digital that the spectacle of the drag queen “Last Supper” performance was a sign Christians in the West were becoming too passive and “weak.”
The controversial display featured numerous performers, including drag queens and a large woman in a halo crown, parodying “The Last Supper,” a universally recognizable painting by renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci of Christ and his apostles on the night of Passover before Christ’s passion and death.