Straight Talk on Pride

The Better Inclusive Love (and Sex) Begins at Home

The first official Straight Pride Parade was held last summer in Boston, a full 49 years after the first Gay Pride one in New York City. The event was spearheaded by Super Happy Fun America, a 501(c)4 nonprofit that "advocates on behalf of the straight community in order to foster respect and awareness with people from all walks of life." (The longer tagline reads, "Super Happy Fun America advocates on behalf of the straight community in order to build respect, inclusivity, equality, diversity, unity, solidarity, dignity, social mobility, empowerment, sustainability, justice, awareness, intersectionality, human rights, education, access, participation, dialogue, visibility, tolerance, and alliances with people from all walks of life."

According to Mass Resistance, the whole thing wasn't meant to be serious so much as to parody Gay Pride: "But as we know, the Left (like all totalitarian movements) has absolutely no sense of humor." And accordingly, over the weeks between the June announcement and the August event, celebrities, politicians, and commentators from all over the country did not find it humorous:

• The parade's organizers were "a group of white supremacists [attempting] to bait the Boston LGBTQ community, as well as racial and ethnic minority communities in Boston."

• The chief organizer's identification with "a patriotic organization dedicated to American nationalism" and protecting "Western culture and Christianity" constituted "code words" to cover extremism and promotion of hate.

• Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, who had initially threatened to deny the group a permit, was respectfully diplomatic, and simply reaffirmed his support for Boston's LGBTQ community and "Boston's values of love and inclusion, which are unwavering."

Although accurate numbers are hard to come by, according to USA Today, the event drew hundreds of marchers and even more protestors. The police presence, as well, reportedly outnumbered participants. Grand Marshall Milo Yiannopoulos, who is flamboyantly gay, said, "We're here to draw attention to the hypocrisy and lunacy of the progressive Left and we've done it beautifully."

It is true that there is much fodder for parody, both in Gay Pride and identity politics, and there's certainly a place for demonstrating the absurdity of the absurd through parody and satire. I won't knock the Straight Pride demonstrators. I commend their courage and convictions. (One woman came all the way from Texas after her 4-year-old's son was asked to "pick your identity.") At the very least, the spectacle displayed inclusivity, diversity, free speech, visibility, and awareness, along with varying measures of tolerance, love, and hate. Welcome to America, folks. This is free speech. Love it or hate it, we must practice if we don't want to lose it.

For the culture war-weary but worldview-wise and compassionate, though, Ty Wyss of Walls Down Ministry has some helpful ideas about navigating the gay-straight divide interpersonally. The Gay Pride narrative says that gays have been historically oppressed. This is not nearly as true as the activists say it is, but it is true that some have been mistreated, he points out. It is also true that many of them believe they are hated, feel shame about themselves, and (this is important for the rest of us to know) seek, and usually find, acceptance in the LGBT community.

Ty says it is belonging, not science or morality or anything else, that moves people. When he showed up at his parents' church still wearing his clothes from the night before, he was always welcomed and loved as if he belonged. And it was there, in that church, that he discovered the greater love of God that far surpassed anything gay life had ever given him.

Far worse than giving us this mess of identity politics, the sexual revolution has eroded the ties binding us to the communities into which we were created to belong. Like charity, sexual pride is best observed, faithfully, at home. And in the long run, that's where the better super happy fun will be found, too.