I am a Christian minister who once took a great joy in proclaiming the Gospel in Downtown New Orleans. I believe that the Vieux Carrè and the other downtown neighborhoods are home to the sort of people that Jesus Christ showed a special compassion for; those that were marginalized and alienated from the mainline culture and religion of his time. That is why it distresses me greatly when moral purists attempting to speak for all Christianity take aim at the debauchery of New Orleans festivals such as Southern Decadence. Their attempt to enforce their own moral values on those with different values does nothing to further the Gospel and does much to impede it.

I watched the Decadence parade last year from a parishioner’s gallery on Royal Street, and I saw nothing different than I have seen at many previous Decadence parades, or Mardi Gras parades either for that matter. As a matter of fact, I thought the year’s Decadence parade was tame compared to those in the past. I saw none of the blatant sexual acts that have so offended my Christian brothers and sisters, but then I admit that I did not go out looking for that sort of behavior with a video camera. I do believe that had I looked for the lewdness and excess that they found I would have found it too, but my desire to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ would not be well served by looking for sin and trying to prevent it by coercion.

For one thing, I think the sexual "in your face" attitude of those whose behavior many find so offensive has its roots in the anger and frustration the offenders feel toward a religion that condemns their sexual orientation in particular and any openness about human sexuality in general. One can argue that the sexual lewdness in the streets is a reaction born of the frustration and anger toward a hypocritical world that does not accept homosexual behavior of any sort either public or private. The offended moral purists may protest that their objections are not about homosexuality but about public lewdness, but homosexuals do not find their protestations convencing. The moral purists offer no acceptable context for homosexual behavior. Instead they voice the same condemnation for acts in private that they condemn as lewdness in the streets.

Jesus Christ had little to say about sexual sin, but he had a great deal to say about religious hypocrisy. He condemned many sins such as greed, gluttony, and indifference to the poor--sins that should demand greater attention by the New Orleans Christian community than sexual acting out in public.

I am not suggesting that I approve of debauchery, whether in the bawdy shows in Gay bars or in the equally bawdy shows in straight bars. If one were interested in exposing straight sexual excess, I suspect one could put together a pretty lively video of that as well. A walk along Bourbon Street above St. Ann on almost any night would provide plenty to video-- drunkenness, gluttony, greed to name a few--even without going into the bars.

I do not think debauchery is a Christian use of the great gift of human sexuality given to us by God, although I don't think a healthy interest in sex is necessarily debauchery either. By the same token, I do not believe debauchery can be eradicated by stopping the Southern Decadence festival or by turning Bourbon Street into Main Street Disneyland. The message of the Gospel that I believe and proclaim leads individuals one by one away from harmful sexual practices.

Sin can never be driven entirely from a world that must be saved one person at a time. You can not save a whole city en masse by a modern version of a sword-point conversions. Grace comes into human life when an individual freely chooses to repent. No grace results from coercion, only anger and frustration.

I am distressed as well because religion based on moral puritanism is tainted by the same excess we in the Western world find frightening about the religious fundamentalists in the Muslim world. Quite frankly moral coercion makes a mockery of the religious freedom we enjoy in the United States. Religious freedom can not be separated from individual choices.

Prayer for sinners, I think is a better tool than laws in effecting the repentance my puritanical brothers and sisters are so energeticaly seeking. I should hope that their prayers might also include a plea for greater tolerance and love towards those whom they alienate. A more tolerant attitude would facilitate  hearing a truer Gospel of love and forgiveness. Certainly it would be better than taking shots at Gay people. Morality flows from spiritual conversion, not the other way around.