For Catholics June has always been devoted to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. But now, thanks to Gay Pride month, June has morphed into the cruelest of months. It was President Bill Clinton who declared June as Gay and Lesbian Pride Month. I do not understand why homosexuals get a special month when they comprise no more than 3% of the population? And why do they seem to own a license for the popular symbol of the Rainbow?
Personally, I have always been fond of rainbows. I have seen many in my time. The most recent occurred the day our family buried my first wife in 2016. On our way to the cemetery, my younger son, who was driving us, spied a rainbow that brightened up a grim afternoon. He gleefully said, do you think there is a pot of gold at the end of it? From where I sat, the end of the rainbow looked to be where our family grave site was. So I quipped, if there is a pot of gold there, she has probably already spent it. My son tried his best to scold me for my insensitive comment but could not resist or stifle a laugh. (His mother was notorious for spending on gifts.)
Rainbows also have a special historical significance. Some trace their importance back to Biblical days when rainbows were seen a symbol of divine promise. Noah saw it as a sign from God that never again would there be such a great flood. This is called the Rainbow Covenant. A social reformer in the 16th century, Thomas Muntzer, connected socially revolutionary causes with his preaching. During the Peasants War, which Muntzer instigated, the rainbow flag was joined with the peasants boot, as a new sign of hope and social change. His statue in his home town of Stolberg depicts him holding a rainbow flag.
America also has some special connections to the rainbow. In 1917, the War Department formed a special military unit, known as the Rainbow Division. It was comprised of members from the National Guards of 26 different states. Colonel Douglas MacArthur was chosen as its commander. For many years, Hawaii was known as the Rainbow State. (Now it prefers the Aloha State.) Its only Division I football team, the University of Hawaii was once known as theRainbow Warriors. In 2020, after 45 years, they dropped the Rainbow appellation.
The most memorable use of a rainbow was the 1939 award-winning film, The Wizard of Oz, based on a book, published in 1900 by L. Frank Baum. Its ever-popular song, Over the Rainbow, made the film a favorite for several generations. As the story unfolded, Dorothy needed to stop getting into trouble. This led her to sing about an imaginative place on the other side of the rainbow where ones’ dreams really come true. A similar theme was successfully reprised in the Muppet Movie in 1979, in a song called The Rainbow Connection.
These songs beg the question, what does a rainbow have to do with a homosexual movement, which threatens the very foundations of American culture? Unsurprisingly, the gay pride and rainbow flag was conceived in San Fransisco in 1978 by artist Gilbert Baker. The different array of colors is often associated with their diversity of sexual expressions and behaviors, which the LBGTQ+ Movement promotes. Clothing and other artifacts with variations of rainbows abound in this country. Years ago, I had a rainbow cap and tee that I swiftly pitched.
Pride Month is now part of the national calendar. Corporate boards have been including their homosexual agenda as part of its Woke commercial advertising. Many professional sports teams have pride nights when the players are required to wear rainbow symbols on their jerseys. In effect, all Americans are called upon to respect their sacred rainbow flag. The Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Catholic Church have been on their (LGBTQ+) hit list for generations. Gay flags are ubiquitous. I am amazed how quickly homosexual culture has become dominant in our daily lives.
One need only go online or read a newspaper to experience the ubiquity of Rainbow and Pride events, which have multiplied like a warren of crazed rabbits. This is largely the work of President Joe Biden, who cannot resist any occasion to embarrass or assail his Catholic Faith. The American embassy in Vatican City now proudly flies the Rainbow Flag, in clear sight of the Pope and in defiance of the Church he leads. Biden has designated millions of taxpayers money to promote Pride Month in 21 federal agencies.
The President has also inserted the Rainbow flag between the American flags that fly outside the White House. I believe that he has broken the law that requires that no state flag or any other kind of flag be given the central position over the stars and stripes. Just as with Catholic Church law, he does this with impunity. I hear little outcry against this devout Catholic from my fellow Catholics, though the American bishops have been highly critical. I also read another story about a Pride Mass being offered at Duquesne University, a Catholic university in Pittsburgh. A phone call from Bishop David Zubik swiftly ended that blasphemy.
Their most outrageous behavior seems to have been reserved for June 16th, when Catholics celebrate the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Two MLB teams, the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Kansas City Royals chose that night to host Drag Queens for the fans, including their children. The Dodgers, who used to play in Brooklyn, were the more egregious. They saw fit to invite and honor with their Community Hero Award, the Sisters of the Perpetual Indulgence (SPI).
The grown men of the SPI usually cavort around wearing the habits of nuns and often act out scenes from the Christian religion. Their depiction of Christ’s crucifixion on Good Friday is replete with blasphemous and indecent symbolism that is the worst public display of hatred for a religion that has ever been sanctioned by a major sports team in our history. After the original condemnation, the Dodgers uninvited the lewd and vulgar sisters. When their lavender lobby in the press pushed back, the Dodgers caved and the Sisters appeared on June 16th. Fortunately this was closed to much of the public.
Only one Dodger player I know of had the temerity to voice any opposition to faux nuns. The star left-handed pitcher, Clayton Kershaw, a Methodist with strong religious beliefs understood that such a profane attack on one religion could easily lead to an attack on all religions. Trevor Williams, a pitcher with the Washington Nationals, who referred to himself as a devout Catholic, slammed the Dodgers for honoring drag queens, dressed as nuns for its LGBTQ+-themed event.
As a child in the early fifties, I was a Brooklyn Dodger fan. The Church had a very close relationship with the owners, the O’Malley family. In 1947, the big news was the re-integration of Baseball with Jackie Robinson. In some ways, the season suspension of Dodger manager, Leo Durocher, who had been instrumental in Robinson’s early acceptance to the team, may have upstaged his historic appearance. When Brooklyn’s Catholic hierarchy learned of Durocher’s adulterous affair with actress Lorraine Day, they protested to the O’Malleys’. The CYO annually provided 50,000 tickets for its young athletes during the season. Unless Durocher was punished, the team was in danger of losing those ticket sales. The Church does not have that same clout, since the team became part of the California cultural landscape.
The most consistent proponents of Pride can easily be found in USA Today, which is a Progressive propaganda rag, disguised as a newspaper. While its two female columnists are usually pushing abortion or some gender issue, the Pride issue seems to belong to Mike Freeman. His title reads that he is their Sports, Race and Inequality Editor. His statements, such as The right is waging a war on all things Pride. We can’t let them win, demonstrate his lack of journalistic objectivity and integrity.
Freeman’s applauding the release of Toronto Blue Jays, pitcher Anthony Bass for his comments, labeled as homophobic, are indicative of his real vocation, which would be better served if he stood on a soapbox in some park and shouted his progressive ideas for all to hear. They do not belong on anyone’s Sports Page.
Bass’ hate speech included his personal opinion that the sale of LGBTQ+ merchandise was evil and demonic. Freeman believes that MLB teams should have zero tolerance for any player who dares to criticize anything gay. Most of what I could find were several rainbow shirts, hats, mugs and so on. Bass was probably referring to their lewd behavior and even the sale of sex toys for boys, which are readily available on line.
All this begs the question as to how the sin of Pride became the symbolic nomenclature for the homosexual movement. LGBTQ+ Pride Month is dedicated to the aftermath of the Stonewall Riots. On June 28, 1969, the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, New York, had a gay bar that was raided by several squads of NYC police. As was common for American gay bars then, the Stonewall was owned by the Mafia.
Raids on the gay and lesbian bars in lower Manhattan had been going on for years but this was the first time that the police were met with any strong resistance. Gays fought the police in a pitched battle that lasted days. Tensions worsened to the extent that neighborhoods demonstrated until finally the police stood down. Since then, the gay liberation movements have spread all over the United States like a California wildfire.
The first gay parade was organized on the first anniversary of Stonewall in 1970, on the weekend of June 29th through July 3rd. Other cities, such as Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco quickly followed suit. The word Pride has a short list of parents, who could be named but the consensus is that its Godfather was gay activist, L. Craig Schoonmaker, who was quoted as saying: A lot of people were very repressed. They were conflicted internally and didn’t know how to come out and be proud. Surprisingly, this did not take place until 2015.
In previous essays, I have mentioned the fact that my late wife and I accidently encountered a gay parade several years ago. En route to Broadway, we found it difficult to cross Fifth Ave. What I described was basically a display of mostly adolescent males, cavorting in jockey underwear while dousing each other with huge squirt guns, the kind one would find eleven-year-olds using poolside. Many were dressed in exotic costumes, especially a very tall black man in his thong and diaphanous teddy.
Today that envelope has been pushed off the table. One might experience much more explicit activities at a typical Pride parade. For example, in 2017, on Fifth Ave, hundreds of thousands, watched marchers in colorful dress—and in some cases, no clothes at all. Others were partly naked and now Drag Queens appear to be de rigueur. I have also read about actual sexual acts or simulations, such as what the blasphemies SPI perform.
Americans now live in a Cole Porteresque gay world where Anything Goes with Pride leading the way. A few years ago, Canadian journalist, Lauen Southern, who was sympathetic to the Gay Movement, described several offensive acts under the banner headline, Pride Parades so nasty they’ll turn ‘all of society against the LGBT community.
In a long video, she showed clips of some of the worst exhibits of these parades, such as lewd dancing, simulated homosexual acts, a twerking eight-year-old girl, a clip of a little girl watching a man dancing in his underwear. Southern came to the painful conclusion that Grandpa was right!…the slippery slope is now here with transgender, even trans species with people claiming to be animals, correct pronouns.
These parades often advertise that they are family friendly. At a Hollywood Pride parade, two men performed a real sex act with children in attendance. Their costume masks are finally off. This is what Gay Pride is all about…our children. They are in their gunsights and it is impossible to separate them from the pederasts among them. I am constantly reminded of a headline from many years ago, in a leading Gay newspaper in San Francisco that proclaimed: If no sex by eight, it was too late!
But there is hope that Americans have taken off their rainbow blinders, especially in the business world. A consumer backlash has caused severe losses to large companies such as Anheuser-Busch, Target, and many more for their blatant linkage to Gay Pride. Even the Woke Starbucks removed Pride decorations from its stores before the deluge hit them. Sport franchises were at the forefront of this backlash.
The opposition began when Russian hockey player, Ivan Povorov, of the Columbus Bluejackets refused to wear any Pride patches. Many players on other teams followed his lead. Major League Baseball has seen the end of the Rainbow and it is filled, not with gold, but with a flood of red ink and millions of angry fans. To protect its several billion-dollar brand, Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred has quietly mandated that all major league teams refrain from using their gay pride uniforms.
There is a moral lesson here for America. For years we have been brainwashed to believe that diversity was good for us, without explanation. Scholar Thomas Sowell has contended for many years in his many books that diverse minorities will be constantly warring with each other. The progressive policies in favor of identity politics, quotas, transgendered, radical feminists, gays, blacks and all other preferred groups have created a severely divided nation. This offers a taste of the kind of life Pride wants for this country under the rainbow where nightmares live.
