Dear Editor,
Re: Double standard when it comes to photos, letter to the editor, Jan. 4
The letter writer asked what some think about the Finlay Knox photo in the Dec. 21 edition. Is this form of expression acceptable because it is sport, not theatre?
Since the reader brings up expression, let’s highlight what is expressed in both cases. Men dressed in drag is much more than a man wearing a dress for laughs. Circumstance is significant. It contributes to the morality and value of human action.
Regardless of whether you find the Rocky Horror Picture Show and/or drag entertaining or insulting, it nonetheless relays a message. The body language and dress of these characters/drag queens teaches the audience (and in the case of this newspaper, children and youth who see it) values.
Namely in this case, that the abnormal is normal, the immoral is moral and vice is virtue. It promotes queer culture by idolizing sexual behaviour as hedonistic and flaunting the idea of sexual perversion which is physically, socially and spiritually harmful. Forgive us parents who are offended by a photograph projecting this onto our children.
Then there is the photo of a high caliber athlete enjoying success. What values of the person are expressed here? Only the qualities that make an individual and society as a whole successful. It communicates determination, work ethic, health, leadership, sacrifice and discipline, to name a few.
So you ask what I think about the photo? I think society in general needs to ask itself what kind of values it chooses to espouse. Is it self-affirmation and woke capitalism at the expense of others, or does it much prefer the values that are the basis of our nature as children of God?
Just saying.
Chris Gregory
Okotoks
