Someone got the Christian Right all riled up about the over-the-top opening extravaganza for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. A tableau including a cast of drag queens and an oversized Smurf was supposedly a blasphemous parody of Michelangelo's painting of the Last Supper. Before long, the outrage had spread like mono at a summer camp.
Except, of course, that it was meant to portray a bacchanalia out of Greek myth, and the Last Supper was supposedly not that wild. Just because Jesus's disciples couldn't stay awake afterward, taking post-prandial naps doesn't mean they were in full party mode.
Then last week, the same people got their panties in a collective wad over a transgender female boxer from Algeria who won against a cisgender female boxer from Italy. Fox Noise Machine went into overdrive. Right-wing cartoonists cranked out toons of burly behemoths pummeling defenseless little girls. Even President Melloni of Italy, Trump, and J.D. Vance weighed in.
The thing is, however, that the boxer from Algeria has been female all her life. By every measure promoted by transphobic Republicans — what's on her birth certificate? what's her given name? who does her grandmother think she is? — she is a woman. Not that you’re likely to see any apologies from the people who accused her of being Andre the Giant in drag.
There are certain people here and abroad who make their living being perpetually offended and making sure their audience is, too.
Don't be surprised if somebody gets all upset that the closing ceremonies end without the IOC wishing the world a "merry Christmas."
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