A local meet-up group really poked a bear in the LGBTQ+ community by posting a Hunky Jesus Contest Facebook invite that included a membership fee for the free event. But after getting nailed with negative comments, they’ve removed the post.
We’ve reported a couple times on a local meet-up and events group called Club Urban Diversion, an event-hosting social club that first caught our eye when they promoted the annual Valentine's Day Pillow Fight with an associated membership fee, though the event had been thrown for nearly 20 years prior, and had always been free. Then in late January of this year, the group posted a Facebook invite to the re-lighting of the Bay Bridge’s Bay Lights that contained a false and made-up date for the event, whose real date still remains undetermined. That unauthorized invite drew a couple requests from Bay Lights organizers to remove the event, which the club did not, though nothing really ever came of it.
But Club Urban Diversion found themselves in a swarm of controversy over the weekend with an unauthorized Facebook invite to Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence’s annual Easter Sunday anniversary celebration in the park, better known as the Hunky Jesus & Foxy Mary Contest. Their invite quickly drew nearly 1,000 “Going” or “Interested” responses. But the group also got crucified for the wanna-be Hunky Jesus invite that again linked to an RSVP page whose event listing said “You must be a member to attend,” on a site offering monthly membership fees of $19-$59 per month. The Hunky Jesus Contest in Dolores Park is, of course, always free to attend.
A person could see the above post while scrolling their Facebook timeline, and reasonably assume that this was the official invite for the 2025 Easter Sunday Hunky Jesus celebration. Many did, after all, the host “Club Urban Diversion” is displayed in tiny gray print at the bottom of the displayed post. This post quickly managed to get far more engagement and responses than the official Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence Facebook event invite.
It brought on a fair amount of outrage that the event’s description made absolutely no mention of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, nor the charitable causes for which the Sisters raise money at the free annual event. (And the invite also displayed a map depicting the event as happening in the Marina, where the group’s meetup was intended to start, as opposed to Dolores Park, where the event actually takes place.)
“The problem occurred when they created a Facebook event called ‘Hunky Jesus and Foxy Mary: SF's Easter in the Park,” Sisters spokesperson Sister Vina Sinfurrs tells SFist. “The post did not mention the Sisters at all, much less that this is a free public event our all-volunteer nonprofit puts on for the community every year, in commemoration of our beginnings on Easter weekend 1979. It also contained some inaccurate information about the event. On searching 'Easter in the Park,' this event actually came up on top of the Sisters' official event page."
Further aggravating matters, the unauthorized invite had no mention of the LGBTQ+ community, particularly in this year when the event’s promoted theme is “No Easter Without the ‘T,’” a show of support for the besieged trans population.
“Beyond the hurt of having our name removed from our own event, people following their event page would not receive updates from us, including how to volunteer and donate, our schedule and entertainment lineup, and rules for our Hunky Jesus, Foxy Mary, and Bonnet contests,” Sister Vina Sinfurrs adds.
Come Saturday and Sunday of this weekend, the four-day-old unauthorized Facebook invite was suddenly drawing hundreds of very angry comments for the Sisters’ fans and supporters. “By Sunday they got back to me. They were surprised by the backlash,” Vina Sinfurrs tells SFist. “As was I, to be honest, and we are grateful the community has our back.”
Club Urban Diversion also got back to us, noting they had been attending the Hunky Jesus Contest as a group contingent for 20 years with no prior blowback. That timeline checks, given this 2004 Chronicle profile of the club that confirms they have been around and organizing events for that long.
“We talked to the Sisters, they asked us to change it this year so we did within 36 hours of ever hearing about the controversy,” the club’s member relations representative told SFist Monday afternoon. “The matter is easily fixed and happily closed by all as we move on to something more pressing.”
The Club changed the Facebook invite event title to "Join us for the Sisters' Easter in the Park." Though then sometime around 2 pm Monday, Club Urban Diversion deleted their Facebook event invite entirely.
And like the Hunky Jesus of the Bible, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are turning the other cheek and promoting forgiveness.
"We sent them a list of requested changes to make it clear that the Sisters' Easter in the Park is a free community event put on by our all-volunteer nonprofit, which they did,” the Sisters add in an updated statement. “We do not think there was any malicious intent here, and the situation was resolved to our satisfaction. We ask that people who posted negative reviews about them consider revising them based on this information.”
And the real sinner here may be the Facebook algorithm, which favors engagement farmers and saturation-post groups. Club Urban Diversion often posts multiple events on any given individual day for their kayaking trips, ski weekends, and other various meetups (some of which look like awesome events!). The Sisters, meanwhile, only post a few event invites all year long.
So the algorithm tends to reward more frequent posters. And in the case of this unauthorized Hunky Jesus invite, the hundreds of angry comments may have paradoxically promoted that invite into even more people’s feeds.
Either way, the Hunky Jesus & Foxy Mary contest is Easter Sunday, April 20, starting at 11 am in Dolores Park. The traditional kids’ Egg Hunt and grown-ups’ Bonnet Contest are the lead-up events, with an array of other performers yet to be announced. The day’s full, specific schedule is still forthcoming.
Image: Joe Kukura, SFist
