> 1) I am not sure that it is hokey. Taking the image
> of the Last Supper, spreading the Leather Pride Flag
> in front of it, having Jesus as a Black leatherman,
> and evoking all the ritualistic aspects of bdsm (which
> include the St. John's Cross) within this context
> (which has its own history of bdsm behavior) is smart
> in a tongue-in-cheek way. Then add in all the agitating
> that the Christian Right does against the bdsm community,
> and you have a clever riposte. Maybe hokeyness is in the
> eye of the beholder.
I didn't mean this ad was hokey, I was referring to John's comments about how Christians have already desecrated their own icons in an effort to seem "hip" to pop cultural sensibilities.
In any event, your point about this particular ad is well taken: I guess there are clear parallels between BDSM and Christianity I wasn't aware of. (Admittedly, I don't know a whole lot about the subject -- my understanding comes mostly from James Miller's Foucault biography.)
That said, I'm still interested in the question of whether, generally speaking, secular leftists ought to be bothered by blasphemy.
-WD