As much as I wanted to condemn the Christian fundamentalists that devour my town, it seems this was a hoax as well. Searched for "St. Mary's hoax" in Google and got:
Kind of a burn from the other side:
Quote:
To track down the source of this river, I had to go back to the source. Rev_tobias gives a brief lineage of the story on Livejournal back to a mysterious flier, but at that point it is purely academic view of the epidemic. I was sure this mutation didn't spawn here; rather, I sought to find the exact St. Mary's Catholic Church it came from.
By adding and subtracting a few search terms in Google, I found a few possible sources:
* This girl claims it's from her local church in Cambridge, UK, although I could no find no churches in that town called "St. Mary's Catholic Church" or anyone else from that area who corraborates this and she was unable to pprovide evidence of her own. Since this is a 16-year-old who can't back up her story in a teen forum, I'll dismiss her case with prejudice.
* MK Magazine changes the title to "Is Your Child a Goth?" and attributes it to a nice parish in Annapolis, MD, most likely because it's the first one that comes up when you Google "St. Mary's Catholic Church." Strangely, the only mention of the word "Gothic" in the parish's whole site is when they talk about architecture. I'm going to have to ignore this unless the people at MK stop looking at Elvira-wannabes and post some proof.
* Most people, though, attribute the post to a St. Mary's Catholic Church in Colorado Springs (see here and here, although a goth bulletin board operator from Colorado Springs here seems not to have heard of it). First, there is no St. Mary's Catholic Church in Colorado Springs; there's a St. Mary's Cathedral. I called them and asked, point-blank, if they sent it out; they said they had no idea where it came from or how it ever got attributed to them.
Black-clad Irony
So while I can't disprove the "If Your Child is a Gothic ..." post, I hope my research about its hopelessly ambiguous origins and variations from repetition show it's far more likely a hoax than a real story. Still, unless I get a confession out of someone, I'm going to have to concede there is a chance it could be real.
Perhaps the only thing I can say is that this is more an ironic insult against Christians than it is against goths. Rather that portraying melancholy types in black with sleep disorders who are otherwise normal kids, it portrays Christians, particularly Catholics, as hyperactive hypocritical conformists seeking to attack even the slightest deviation or act of rebellion as a sign of going goth. In other words, it allows those who feel persecuted to attack their persecutors by stereotyping them on a supposed claim.
Of course, if the Catholics weren't persecuting the goths at all - and there is no real evidence they are - I guess that means the goths are being true to their stereotypes as whiny brats so desperate to rebel they're willing to manufacture a cause. This makes them look worse than their habit of wearing too much mascara does.
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http://stnate.blogspot.com/2005/02/g...catholics.html -- about the middle of the page.
.. Google gives me "St Mary's Catholic Cathedral (719) 473-4633" if you'd like to confirm for yourself. 
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"I'm typing on a computer of science, which is being sent by science wires to a little science server where you can access it. I'm not typing on a computer of philosophy or religion or whatever other thing you think can be used to understand the universe because they're a poor substitute in the role of understanding the universe which exists independent from ourselves." - Willravel
Last edited by Jinn; 06-27-2005 at 02:10 PM..
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