Confronted by the sheer amount of media hoopla over “Pride Month,” I am reminded of Sam Francis’ quip about another month-long observance of a political agenda that was then being assiduously promoted by the media: “Black History Month, sometimes called February.”
What began with “gay pride parades” in a handful of cities is now a month-long celebration of something that is no longer limited to “gays” but includes every coupling imaginable except the one coupling that actually matters for the survival of civilization: marriage between a man and a woman, something known simply as “marriage” until the last 15 or so years.
After all, the difference between heterosexual coupling and the many arrangements between homosexual men, lesbians, men and women who have undergone multiple surgeries in an effort to become something they are not, and all the rest covered by the ever lengthening rainbow of LGBTQIA+dom could not be more stark: take one hundred heterosexual couples and deposit them on a desert island, a century later you will find a growing human society. Take one hundred couples of the type we are commanded to celebrate for the month of June and place them on a different desert island and a century later there will be only ruins.
Different societies have drawn somewhat different conclusions from this fact, ranging from vigorous prosecution of proscribed sexual acts to varying degrees of tolerance, but no society before ours has done what we are doing: so thoroughgoing is the celebration of “pride” that growing numbers of young people are claiming to be part of the rainbow, undercutting the very argument that was used to overthrow marriage in the first place. Born that way? Maybe not. Or at least not always.
Where does this end? Our geopolitical rivals are hardly following our lead, despite the rainbow banners festooning myriad American embassies. China is dealing with declining birthrates by encouraging couples to have three children where, not long ago, they were coerced into having only one. Vladimir Putin honors mothers of large families with medals and public recognition.
I certainly understand why even many conservatives have come to accept much of what was unthinkable only a short time ago. But I do wonder, a century from now, what the discernible differences will be between those societies that embraced “pride” and those that didn’t, and how many will still be celebrating “pride.”
After all, the future belongs to those who show up. And the way to make sure your nation’s people show up is to strengthen marriage, an institution that naturally, though not inevitably, produces children, not to redefine “marriage” to encompass other arrangements that don’t.
