🇺🇸 Point of Pride

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CULTURE

Point of Pride

June marks the annual LGBTQ+ Pride festival, which pays tribute to the past struggles for gay and transgender rights, as well as ongoing concerns in this area. This includes various events, promotions, awareness campaigns, and parades. Meanwhile, the backlash over Target selling transgender items for kids is playing out at the same time.

Reporting from The Right: Christian leader declares June 'Fidelity Month' instead of 'Pride Month' Emily Robertson, Fox News

Reporting from The Left: How Fox News is boosting a “coordinated planned attack on the LGBTQ+ community” during Pride month Areeba Shah, Salon

From The Flag: For many years gay marriage was a goal of the Pride movement, which has become a reality for LGBTQ+ couples in the US. But some groups are particularly worried about violence against members of the community, including the Human Rights Campaign — which has declared a state of emergency. Here’s more from both sides.

RIGHT-LEANING SENTIMENT

The Left Isn’t After Tolerance, but Rather Indoctrination and Forced Compliance

• It’s time to end Pride month: gay marriage equality has already been achieved, as well as laws protecting LGBTQ+ people from discrimination.

• Americans have become increasingly tolerant in recent decades, but the radical push to include transgenderism in every aspect of life has people saying “stop.”

• If we don’t stop this false compassion and this outrageous indulgence, it’s only going to get worse.

Time to End Gay Pride Month John Ullyot, Townhall Opinion: "As a proud American who happens to be gay, I say it's time to end gay pride month. ... This annual frenzy of rainbow flag waving has shifted into overdrive in recent years and has reached the point of self-parody and irrelevance at the same time. The best way to honor gay Americans would be to wake up and end this dated annual tradition once and for all, recognizing that the decades-long battle for parity is already won and we are simply proud and patriotic Americans, full stop. In American society today, it is impossible to find a single corporation, small business, farm, any branch of the military, or any other place in government or the private sector where anyone would be fired or discriminated against for being gay or married (now legally) to someone of the same gender, and that's a great thing."

This Pride Month, it’s the Revolt of the ‘Normies’ as Americans reject extremism Steven F. Hayward, New York Post Opinion: "Traditional middle-class Americans, are saying, 'Enough.' The long-term trend in American social life for decades now has been expanding the boundaries for individual expression and self-definition. Americans have generally been tolerant, if sometimes slow to move, toward what were once considered 'deviant' traits like homosexuality, but also interracial marriage and women in the workplace. It is worth noting that by the time of the Supreme Court’s 2015 Obergefell decision legalizing same-sex marriage, public opinion had come to support the idea, after having been strongly opposed just 20 years ago. But the current push on behalf of gender fluidity differs fundamentally from previous 'liberation' movements, as it requires a wholesale denial of human nature itself and demands conformity to this radical view. Far from merely wanting to be tolerated or left alone, the new transgender movement insists on transgressing every institutional and social boundary, from bathrooms to sports to the elementary school classroom."

One more opinion piece from the Right: Pride Celebrations and the Law Written on the Heart James Patrick Riley, American Greatness

LEFT-LEANING SENTIMENT

Hatred for Trans, Book Bans, and Violence — Pride in 2023

• A wave of hate is spreading toward the LGBTQ+ community, in the form of targeted laws, book bans, curriculum changes, and violence.

• Christian evangelicals, having lost the gay marriage battle, have set their sites on the alleged threat transgender people pose to children.

• Figures on the right have launched a broad campaign against LGBTQ+ individuals, in an attempt to diminish their influence, and Target failed to stand up to that.

Pride Month, LGBTQ inclusion is good business: Human Rights Campaign Kelley Robinson, USA Today Opinion: "Kid Rock would like you to believe that companies just started caring about LGBTQ+ people, but for more than 20 years, our nation’s largest employers have worked with the Human Rights Campaign to achieve basic benchmarks of LGBTQ+ inclusion. This work matters more than ever – as does a company’s visible commitment to the community. This June will be a test on both fronts. More than 520 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced across the country since Jan. 1. More than 220 of those target the transgender community – the highest in a single year. This wave of hate has real consequences – from book and curriculum bans erasing our stories to nearly 100,000 trans youth losing access to lifesaving, medically necessary health care. Hate crimes are skyrocketing, and suicide risks are higher due to the stigma being spread about LGBTQ+ lives."

Retailers, Don’t Let The Homophobes Win This Pride Month Dustin J. Seibert, Huffington Post Opinion: "Call it capitalistic social awareness: During Black History Month (February), Women’s History Month (March) and Pride Month... we see businesses change up their marketing... Unfortunately, companies planning to acknowledge Pride Month are doing so in an unsavory political climate: Anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment from right-wing politicians and Twitter account owners with an eagle carrying the American flag as their primary photo has poisoned otherwise routine annual corporate acknowledgment. ... Much of this animus boils down to the country’s culture war over everything transgender. ... ostensibly engineered to protect the children from the next global population-decimating pandemic of transgender folks. But many of these politicians and their constituents are simply scared that they’ll one day wake up to a non-heteronormative society ― just as they were scared a couple of generations ago of seeing Black folks freely walking the streets minding their own damn business."

One more opinion piece from the Left: The mistake Target made by removing Pride items Neil Young, CNN

FLAG THIS

Polling The People on Pride Issues

Polling data shows Americans broadly support gay marriage (71% - Gallup in May 2022, 61% - Pew Research in October 2022). The same poll from Gallup found 71% of respondents feel gay and lesbian relationships are “morally acceptable.”

In 1996, when Gallup first asked the gay marriage question, just 27% supported its legalization.

Regarding transgender issues, a poll from late last year found 57% believe “whether someone is a man or a woman is determined by the sex they were assigned at birth” (Washington Post/Kaiser Family Foundation). A Pew poll from last year found 60% feel sex is assigned at birth, up from 54% in 2017.

Last month, a survey found just 44% believe that “people should be able to decide their gender identity for themselves” (Axios/Ipsos).

FLAG FINDS

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