At a downtown Tempe, Ariz., “Pride Party” earlier this month, a drag queen encouraged the crowd to register to vote so that they may “turn the tide on all the hate and anti-gay nonsense in the statehouse . . . in Florida, in the United States.”
The “all ages” event also featured speeches by Democratic officials and a gay rapper who performed a song about a sex act. Video shows plenty of small children were present.
That same weekend, at West Hollywood, Calif.’s “family friendly” Pride celebration, video circulated of two men performing a public sex act in broad daylight on a float in the parade. The next day, a drag performer dedicated to mocking and disparaging Christians was honored at the state Capitol in Sacramento.
Shocking as it continues to be, none of this seems especially uncharacteristic for June in the US, where Pride events have become increasingly demented, offensive, and tied to wacky, far-left politics inspired by “critical queer theory,” critical race theory’s genderless stepchild.
The media has been more than happy to take up the cause, breathlessly repeating lines about Republican legislatures passing recent “anti-gay” laws — 417 to be exact. It’s gotten so bad, this month the Human Rights Campaign even declared a “state of emergency” for the “LGBTQ+ community.” But each of those laws deals with the sexualization of, and medical experimentation on, children. If that’s what defines being gay, count me out. And I’m not the only one who thinks so.
Plenty has happened in the seven years since I was guillotined for coming out of the closet as a gay conservative. Whereas in 2016 only a handful seemingly existed, today thousands of LGBT influencers cram social-media feeds as part of a gathering wave rejecting the far-left. The result has been the alphabet mob’s nose-dive into madness.
If the left’s attempt to frame child genital mutilation as a civil rights issue weren’t off-putting enough, LGBTs are simply growing up. Some 15% of same-sex couples now have at least one child at home (compared to 38% of heterosexual couples). With basic rights an issue of the past, LGBTs are increasingly concerned with kitchen table issues and it’s reflecting at the ballot box. LGBT votes for Donald Trump doubled in 2020 compared to 2016, up to nearly 28%.
All of this points to LGBTs realizing the rainbow emperor has no clothes. The gay conversion camps they promised under a Trump-Pence administration never materialized. Instead, all we got was an explosion in gender reassignment clinics. Many gay Americans saw that Trump, a live-and-let-live libertine, was on their side. As far back as 2000, gay magazines fawned over his support for gay rights and — unlike Barack Obama, Joe Biden, or Hillary Clinton — he never flip-flopped on the issue.
As president, Trump also appointed the nation’s first openly gay cabinet member, Richard Grenell. Trump then launched a historic initiative to decriminalize homosexuality in the more than 60 nations where it is still illegal.
Biden, by comparison, is a perfect example of the priorities of his party. They frame everything as an issue of life and death then fuss over what new color to add to the Pride flag. While sheltering a non-binary luggage thief in his Energy Department and inviting transgender TikTokers to the White House for photo ops, Biden pussyfooted around the 2022 uprisings in Iran — which included many gays fighting for actual rights. He also oversaw the disastrous withdraw from Afghanistan where, once the US pulled out, the Taliban immediately reinstated the death penalty for homosexuality.
Should Ron DeSantis become the Republican nominee, he ought to pay attention: he’s going to need a few good gays to go to bat for him. The media has dubbed him the man who made it illegal to be gay in Florida. In fact, DeSantis and “LGBTQ+ rights” is all they can talk about. While laughable — have you been to Fort Lauderdale lately? — Tampa Pride canceled their festivities in May after Florida advanced a bill protecting children from adult-themed performances.
“In the end, we didn’t want to take any chances,” the president of Tampa Pride told a local outlet.
Other Florida bills that forbid things such as mandatory pronoun usage led to left-wing nonprofits instituting a travel advisory against the state. And Disney has launched an all-out war against the governor over his law instructing teachers to not discuss sex with kindergarteners.
The fact is, like the rest of America, LGBTs are becoming increasingly divided into two groups: Those who want to be left alone, and those who won’t leave everyone else alone. The former is surprised to find themselves pretty comfortable in the GOP. Let’s hope the Big Tent continues to welcome them.
Chadwick Moore is a contributing editor at The Spectator.
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