Pride Month Goeth Before a Fall

June is upon us and the rainbows are out full force—but could it be with a diminishing force? Unilaterally appropriated as “Pride Month,” the beginning of summer comes with the unfurling of the Rainbow Flag in neighborhoods, stores, and internet ads because anything less, at this point, would be branded as homophobic censorship. Get in line, fly the flag, cry “love is love,” or get torn down. 

But what happens when the untainted and unafraid refuse to fly the flag or bend the knee? When push comes to shove, the Rainbow Flag is meaningless and proclaims a fidelity as fleeting as the rainbow that vanishes as quickly as it appears (how cruel it is to compare that thing of beauty to such ugliness). The time may be coming when people will be brave enough to see it, and say it, and stop the moronic LGBTQIADIDIGETTHEMALL?+ lip service.

They say that woke allegiance is a mile wide and an inch deep, meaning that though it’s pervasive, it’s not as firm as it seems. This latter point is probably in some ways true and not true. It is not true in the sense that the origins of what we call “woke” have roots that run very deep, as the liberal lifestyle and ideologies have a longstanding history of divorcing themselves from natural law and traditional values. But it is true in the sense that society is a fickle thing that is moved by fear, popularity, and power and will march to the beat du jour if only for the sake of obtaining financial security and political sway.

For this reason alone, the Rainbow Flag shouldn’t be flown. It is ridiculous in the haphazard, frantic fashion that we see because no one really means what they say by it. They just don’t. And the demonstrations of Pride Month are beneath the dignity of those who wave it and even those for whom it is waved. No one will die on the hill of gay pride and gay rights. It is too individualistic a cause to motivate martyrdom. The Rainbow Flag is no more than a gesture of safety, self-righteousness, self-indulgence, self-service, and allegiance to the powers that be that wish to promote the false idea of freedom as being limitless choice unrestricted by external norms or authorities. 

No one has that much loyalty to a movement that is against the normal course of nature and reason. No one has that much dedication in a relativist, nonconformist culture. The Rainbow Flag is a lie, plain and simple, and it shouldn’t be tolerated either on the conservative Christian side or the liberal secular side. It is pandering, it is patronizing, it is grooming, it is a false front for a trendy and treacherous movement; and it is not about love at all—unless it is love of self. For loving acceptance lies not in a loving acceptance of lies.

And, marginal though it may seem—and may be—there are stirrings of resistance to the agenda behind the Rainbow. The mega-retailer Target has featured LGBTQ+-themed merchandise in June, including this year’s “tuck-friendly” women’s bathing suits for men (in adult and children’s sizes). But this year, thanks to a loud backlashing and boycotting from conservative groups and customers, Target swept those products from their shelves. Though the corporation ascribed their capitulation to the safety of its employees from rabid right-wing extremists, the bottom line is that the dollar is still almighty. Marginal though it may seem—and may be—there are stirrings of resistance to the agenda behind the Rainbow. Tweet This

The Bud Light and Nike fiascoes in featuring the transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney are other high-profile, big-business instances of proclaiming support for madness and then backing right off when confronted with sane people who are determined to debase their brand and damage their profit margins.

Presidential candidate Ron DeSantis has also shown that Floridians are ready to take a stand against the sexual psychoses of the day with the “Don’t Say Gay” bill and his staunch political war against the indoctrinations of Disney. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Dodgers have been flip-flopping with drag queen invitations due to the loud objection by ordinary, honest Americans. Despite the rainbows that plaster our neighborhoods, there are still plenty who object and who are growing more and more ready to do so with both words and wallets.

This awakening to the woke has been some time in coming. The liberal Left has been legitimizing a wide range of disorders and subcultures where, eventually, the contradictions created by the criteria will lead to absurdity. That is the logical conclusion when logic is abandoned. And there is only so much absurdity that the common man with his common sense will tolerate. The experiment in liberty has degraded into libertinism, and people are starting to notice—even people on the Left.

Speaking on the ongoing crisis of sexuality, Jordan Peterson has pointed out that it has only been a handful of decades since the dawn of reliable birth control, and the effects have not had enough time to fully manifest the results of this dramatic societal sea change. But while we may not yet have clear answers, we certainly do have clear questions in the broken families, scarred children, and unfulfilled youth—such as, whether the purported freedom of “love being love” is actually healthy or even human. Love is far more complicated than the sexual revolution gave it credit for.

The current state of unbridled sexual affairs is the result of years of sexual permissiveness and promiscuity. And it has infected a whole generation with profound confusion, people who have lost the guiding principle of the traditional rules of marriage, monogamy, and procreation. These days, everything is seemingly on the table when it comes to sex—but when someone gets offended, as they invariably will, the offender gets Me-Tooed or hate-speeched into oblivion, and people suddenly grope for hard rules about “consent” and “diversity”—which is ironic since the watchword a moment before was “you do you.”

Sex, gender, and sexuality are all sacred and solid things, and the radical Left is running up against solid obstacles in their airy agendas. They assure us that all sexual preference is acceptable, that all imaginable forms of sexual expression are permissible and to be celebrated without consequence—except when it makes people upset. Well, people are getting upset, and as a consequence, their card castle is faltering. 

The age-old sexual anathemas are reasserting themselves, arising from the liberal Left as well as from the conservative Right. The more society extracts sex not only from emotional intimacy and long-term relationship but also from its procreative purpose, the less firm is its false foundation. We have to relearn and reclaim the proprieties of sex, and the Rainbow Flag is a reminder of that—and of how far we have descended into sexual freefall. 

Catholics should take a stand, therefore—a vocal yet charitable stand—against the Rainbow Flag. Lodge well-worded complaints. Write petitions. Change your shopping habits, even if just for the month of June. Pray in public. Conscientiously object. Adopt slogans of peaceful defiance. We have the numbers, and we should act in that confidence even if we don’t perceive our army. 

And if not in that, we should act in the confidence that the rainbow actually intended to bestow—the confidence that God will not relinquish us in the face of cultural collapse. And He will not. Love is love, I suppose, but that’s not saying anything. It is saying something, however, that God is love. But the rainbow that flaps in doorways, arches over clothing, and flashes on screens in our day and age is a warning instead of an assurance. As the old song goes, “God gave Noah the rainbow sign—no more water but fire next time.”