Gay Santa Riles Conservatives

A new one-man show about a gay Santa Claus is whipping conservatives into a frenzy, including members of Focus on the Family, reports the gay advocacy group Truth Wins Out.

Santa Claus Is Coming Out! is Jeffrey Solomon's off-Broadway play about St. Nick and his relationship with Italian toymaker Geppetto. A benefit performance of the satirical show aided the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, which works to end antigay harassment in schools. Antigay conservatives have run with this information, using it as ammunition in their campaign against Kevin Jennings, the assistant deputy secretary for safe and drug-free schools for the Department of Education. Jennings, a gay man, founded GLSEN.

"Yet more evidence revealing the dark side of GLSEN-the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network--has surfaced. (GLSEN is the group founded by President Obama's 'safe school's czar,' Kevin Jennings.) At issue this time is a GLSEN fundraiser featuring a theatrical play called Santa Claus Is Coming Out!" Focus on the Family education analyst Candi Cushman wrote on a Focus on the Family blog December 3.

Cushman also described promotional materials related to the play as sexually suggestive, though the link she provides leads to a photo of a Santa covering his face. "We have not marketed this play with sex," Solomon told Instinct magazine. "The play is not about sex. The play simply asks a hypothetical question. 'How would the world react, if Mrs. Claus were revealed to be a beard, and that Santa Claus was actually a gay man?'"