Dunno if you've ever met any swingers. A buddy of mine used to DJ at a swinger's club in Seattle and another buddy played their events from time to time. Swingers are extraordinarily shy and they really loathe attention; I'd go as far as to hypothesize that the "dirty" nature of what they're doing is a turn-on and if they have to be out'n'proud about it, it's no longer sexy. So shining the light of publicity on them is pretty much kryptonite; about all they can do is go find somewhere else to do their thing without being bugged. The fact that the couple in the article have a set building and have made no serious attempts to get counsel from any civil rights group demonstrates that they're small-time and publicity averse.

Take, on the other hand, Repent's actions against the Unitarian Universalist church. You'll note that nothing is said in the article about that - probably because it would get the exact opposite message across. My wife dabbles at being Unitarian from time to time and lemme tell ya - there's nothing they like more than protesting against the abuse of human rights. Vietnam? Iraq? Afghanistan? OWS? Unitarians are down, man. So the idea of a bunch of Texan Unitarians cowering in fear from a handful of crackpot charismatics made me chortle a little bit. Let's dig a little deeper, shall we?

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/wildhunt/2010/03/quick-note-rep...

"Their respective websites are fairly clear on their agenda, but their efforts have had the unintended effect of drawing positive attention to our Fellowship; many of our newer members and guests learned of the Amarillo Unitarian Universalist Fellowship due to Repent Amarillo’s well-publicized activities and website.

While we might keep a wary eye on Repent Amarillo, they have not prevented us in the least from growing and moving forward into an exciting future. We’ve discovered that plenty of folks in the Amarillo area are seeking a place to share a progressive, tolerant, and welcoming religious experience.”

* * *

Back when kids had spine, we owned the Plaza de Santa Fe. It was a great place to hang out on a Friday or Saturday night, smoke some weed, do some skateboarding. This, of course, annoyed the hell out of the Christians - who did obnoxious things like set up a stage and do religious covers of heavy metal songs (Scorpions' "Still Loving You" became "He Died For You" etc). Until, that is, some 16-year-olds in an El Camino drove by their stage with a fire extinguisher and doused their gear. And then another group stole the shit that wasn't broken the next week. So much for the ministries. It took the Chamber of Commerce to bust things up; they needed to demonstrate that what they were doing was better for taxes so they opened a night market.

Skaters don't take a lot of lip. Christian groups that attempt to oppress people with more stones than them usually end up losing. It's only by picking on the weak that they make any progress... and having spent some time in Amarillo, this sounds like a case of one paste-eating group picking on another paste-eating group and the vast majority of the people in the middle wishing they would both go away.

Swingers are an easily-oppressed culture. They make GLAAD look like the 1st Air Cavalry. As my buddy Steve so indelicately put it, "if they could get laid some other way, they wouldn't be swingers." I mean, look at this shit:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/wildhunt/2010/03/first-they-cam...

This isn't "one of the most 100 pieces of important whatever in 2011". This is a bunch of Mayberry Mayhem. Somewhere in here is a King of the Hill episode waiting to happen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=f...

Tell me you don't see Dale Gribble foaming at the mouth about Druids stealing souls and social security numbers up at the nature center.