June used to be the most exciting month of the year.
Coming from someone who hates winter, June has always been a welcome celebration of summertime, complete with the longest days of the year and some of the warmest. It was always the month that I put another year behind me both in school and as a Gemini, though I won’t pretend to believe in anything related to astrology. If I were superstitious, I might fear the fact that June 13 was a Friday in 1997. Some girls might complain the bad-luck date explains my gayness (sorry, ladies).
But just as aging has begun to produce more anxiety than excitement, June has transformed from the inaugural month of summertime and music festivals to a dreaded 30-day parade in an escalating culture war. Pride month is here.
Every year, pride month surfaces with some of the most nauseating and unhinged commentary in American politics. Conservatives condemn the sex-obsessed spectacles with righteous indignation, and leftists respond to criticism with a blasphemous mockery of religion. Of course, it doesn’t help to shrug off depictions of demonism when Target promotes a “pride” collection designed by a literal Satanist. Nor does grinding on a cross in a graphic display of performative heresy help cultivate mainstream acceptance.
But widespread tolerance of homosexuality no longer seems to be the point of the rainbow holiday. If it were, pride month might no longer exist. More than 70 percent of the country supports same-sex marriage, up from half in 2012 when the nation remained evenly divided. And the “hate crime” statistics are constantly manipulated to serve a political agenda.
But pride month isn’t about sexuality anymore. It’s about coercing a public that was previously hesitant towards gay marriage to now endorse nearly every degenerate item on the left-wing cultural agenda. Trans activists hijacked what was a righteous movement for gay tolerance and turned it into a narcissistic exercise of coercive validation. Gays get caught up in the campaign out of peer intimidation, often devoid of any real conviction beyond the desire for conformity. The primal impulse to virtue signal is the natural response. Corporations, meanwhile, are eager to capitalize, cashing in on the rainbow dollar signs.
This performance capitalism does two things: 1) it reinforces Wall Street’s commitment to promoting left-wing cultural currents and 2) it antagonizes conservatives, especially religious conservatives, most of whom, at this point, just want to be left alone.
One chief characteristic of clinical narcissism is a need for admiration to compensate for the lack of validation in childhood. The aggressive narcissism presented by so many gays today to the point of demanding corporations dedicate an entire month to “gay pride” didn’t just come from nowhere. Between social media and the isolation it breeds, oversexualized public education, and real and perceived hostility from churches and families, levels of narcissism in LGBT activists have risen to new heights, with activists now relishing in the endless validation of pride parades, K-12 classrooms and corporate pride programs.
The inherent narcissism in LGBT activism today has shifted to adopt an aggressive tone wherein radicals feel compelled to desecrate the church and silence critics for the sake of political and cultural acceptance among their newfound tribe. Now there remains a whole month to do it, dedicated to the new religion of transgenderism. A childhood need for validation is now being collectively weaponized to fundamentally change the nation in favor of leftist interests.
While Americans have now grown largely comfortable with having homosexual couples as their neighbors, even if many don’t religiously recognize same-sex marriage, the pendulum can swing back. How far it might swing will depend on how far the wokes push, and let’s not pretend no one’s grooming children when there are literally trans flag onesies for babies in Kohl’s.
The development of child pride apparel courtesy of corporate America is a remarkable illustration of how much validation LGBT activists crave today. Now pride month, which has really turned into pride season, is a new entitlement to guarantee said validation.
So how should we approach pride month today? To some, it’s a time calling for aggressive far-left activism. To others, it’s a Satanic ritual of a post-Christian society. To me, and to most gays, I imagine, it’s just an excuse to go out with neighbors who have something in common. Some gays will take the entire month and fly city to city for their favorite festivals. I don’t think many gay men really look at pride month as a desperately necessary instrument of tolerance. For corporate America, “pride” is an annual cash grab.
I never looked at my own sexuality as something I felt I needed to be “proud” of. Homosexuality is an immutable characteristic, not something to be proud or ashamed of. I’m no prouder to be gay than I am to be white. Of course, gay liberals love to condemn this idea as self-hating. At the same time, it’s easy to imagine their reaction if I were to pump my fist in the air and proclaim, “white pride.” Twitter celebrated pride month last year by reminding users “white gay privilege” is something to shame. (And spare me the lecture about “Velvet Rage,” I’ve read the book too.)
“Pride” is rooted in arrogance. But if you’re so proud to be gay or trans that you need to speak about your sexual identity with a third grader, maybe you’re not “proud” but profoundly insecure. The arrogance demonstrated by those who demand a month-long holiday to celebrate themselves is far less a manifestation of dark psychic forces of the devil at work than of generational narcissism.
Pride month today isn’t bringing anyone together. To the contrary, it’s only pulling us farther apart. The only universal common ground we have is our collective identity as Americans, and even patriotism itself has become politicized.
June, pride month, the solstice month, (my birthday month,) also happens to be home of Flag Day on the 14th. If we really want to unite the country, we might rethink our summer priorities in the run-up to July 4. We can start by replacing the front-porch rainbows with the stars and stripes. That’s not to say we can’t celebrate ourselves. I’m still going out with my brother in Chicago for my 26th in two weeks. But we can at least check the rainbow flags under the red, white, and blue banner.
The corporate onslaught during pride month has become so detached from the original intent, the divisive spectacle we’re left with makes a good case that we should focus our celebrations on shared values such as tolerance rather than issues of identity and sex. Until the Fortune 500 firms capitalizing on pride in the United States push for gay rights in Iran, there’s no better country to be gay in than America.
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