The young men who most desperately want to defend the virginity of their anuses had no idea how fittingly they had positioned themselves. Nor did they know who might be listening, perhaps just a few metres away.
The boys defended—and genuinely succeeded in doing so—the Bolesławiec market square from being trampled by people taking part in the Equality March, held under the slogan “We live in Europe; Europe is within us.” The men shouted at the top of their football-fan voices: “This is Poland, not Brussels; perverts are not supported here” and “God, honor and homeland.” They shouted loudest by the basilica and beneath the windows of Prelate Andrzej Jarosiewicz’s apartment, but he did not react (possibly because he was in the church rather than at the parish house).
The police blocked the boys in the market square, but that did not stop them from celebrating their defense of this patch of Bolesławiec land against evil. They even applauded themselves for it, and their joy could be compared to the way PiS celebrated its victory after the election. It can safely be said that the victory was Pyrrhic. The boys may not understand what that means, but Father Andrzej Jarosiewicz certainly does, since he is a lecturer at the Pontifical Faculty of Theology in Wrocław and a postdoctoral habilitation holder in theological sciences.
Nationalists ran around the market square looking for “faggots,” while little boys reported the movements of their opponents to them—our heroes from two previous articles, the same ones who terrorize the market square by throwing stones at people. The kids later came to our picnic beneath the viaduct and received cookies. The nationalists were absent. Could they have been a little afraid of the police guarding the Equality March? No, that is not possible. They simply “withdrew to positions chosen in advance,” where they could indulge in contempt and self-satisfaction over their action. After all, they had a purpose in leaving home: to insult Polish women and men in the worst possible terms. Such a national and patriotic task.
Why was the nationalists’ appearance precisely beneath Prelate Jarosiewicz’s Basilica of Mary so significant? Because Saint Sebastian is the unofficial patron saint of gay men, and his statue stands by the side entrance to the basilica.
The Catholic Church disavows this patronage, but queer culture claimed the saint for itself over the centuries. When you enter the basilica, take a look at the beautiful, naked young man sculpted by Jerzy Leonard Weber. Although arrows pierce Sebastian’s muscular body, his figure is bent as if in ecstasy, and there is no trace of suffering on his face—this pose is extraordinarily sensual. The arrows penetrating his body are more phallic symbols than instruments of torture. Arrows of a homoerotic Cupid.
Right beneath the basilica, closer to the statue, there was also a prayer group accompanied by a priest from outside our town. First they prayed before Saint Sebastian, then they dropped by the picnic and wolfed down free grilled sausages until their ears shook!