As another Pride Month comes to an end, the war for the soul of the world has intensified. I thought briefly that the tide may have been turning, but I was wrong. Let me explain.
Near the end of May, I was talking to a friend about my writing routine. I told him I had begun frequenting my local IKEA store in the afternoons to sit in the café. It’s only about ten minutes from my house, and with my wife’s family membership card I can have all the free coffee I want. It’s a big, bright space where no one bothers me, and I have been very productive there. If I lived in Vienna, I might sit in the Café Bräunerhof. If I lived in Paris, I could go to La Closerie des Lilas. But I live in the north Dallas suburbs, and I’m more or less broke, so I make do.
But as I told my friend about my makeshift workplace, he reminded me: “Pretty soon the atmosphere will be unbearable in there. Pride month!” I acknowledged that an eruption of rainbows might be a bit of a distraction, but I showed up on June 1 anyway. Sure enough, I was met out front with the latest version of the imperial banner, which had temporarily replaced the flag of Sweden in between Old Glory and the state flag of Texas. “Ugh,” I thought, “but at least the other two are still there.” Once inside, however, I was surprised that things seemed just about normal—same mediocre coffee and same cheap furniture. No gayer than usual.
And then, everywhere else I went, I began to notice—or not notice—the same thing. The Pride stuff didn’t seem that bad this year.
Now, my mild sense of relief amid mundane retail experiences is partly geographically biased. I live in one of the least Pride-oriented large population centers in the nation. For example, the Texas Rangers are the only Major League Baseball team without any kind of Pride event. But elsewhere—everywhere?—it’s different. The Pride flag has flown all month at the White House, with our Catholic president’s explicit approval. A friend sent me a picture of the same standard flying outside the U.S. Consulate in Krakow, Poland, and I am told it’s the same all around the world.
Then there were a few silver linings to some of the darkest clouds we’ve seen yet.
Target stores decided to sell transgender merchandise to children, as well as apparel designed by a Satanist—obviously a catastrophe for traditionalists, but apparently a step too far for the normies too, as the store sort of backed down. (But they blamed us bigots for having to do so.) And there was a small sign of hope when Bud Light’s progressive marketing disaster resulted in sales dropping almost 27%. Finally there were the Los Angeles Dodgers, whose decision to honor the blasphemous Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence resulted in abysmal game attendance and a huge protest led by Southern California lay Catholics, but not the Archdiocese.
Victories? Sort of. Five years ago—heck, even one year ago—the battles themselves would have been unthinkable.
But then there were the parades.
Several days ago, I happened to notice that a gay friend in Nashville declared he would not be going to the local Pride gathering because he felt “unsafe,” specifically naming the Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh as someone whose work has somehow endangered people. I won’t link my friend’s posts just in case he doesn’t read this article and we may still have a relationship; but I was utterly baffled. Unsafe?! It was in Nashville where a trans person had just murdered third-graders because they were Christians.
Or have we forgotten so soon?
Footage and stories from parades all over the United States reinforced who is really unsafe.
In Seattle, naked men road bicycles and splashed around in a fountain where children were present, and even “flaunted their genitals.” In Hollywood, men were seen performing sex acts at a “family friendly” celebration. And in New York City, a large crowd of parade attendees marched to the chant, “We’re here, we’re queer, we’re coming for your children.” Oh, and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, the self-described “leading edge order of queer and trans nuns” were there again too!
Finally, in photos from an unidentified event circulating on Twitter, presumed Pride activists were photographed walking behind a large sign that read “Satan loves homosexuals.” Another person displayed a t-shirt that said “Not today Jesus,” with a goat’s head bearing an upside-down pentagram, rainbow horns, and a flame. (I won’t link it, but variations of this shirt are widely available online.)
Now, I know these parades have never been morally edifying, to say the least. But we’re dealing with a whole new level of evil now.
Before I go any further here, I would be a jerk and a fool if I didn’t admit that I worry about hurting my friend in Nashville and other friends, along with some of my former parishioners and colleagues from my past in parish ministry—people who are already in a lot of pain. I especially regret and seek to avoid further alienation from family members. And so, as a small consolation, I want to quote my friend and former colleague Matthew Petrusek, who has written and spoken in various places on these matters with searing criticism coupled with true charity. His disclaimer is better than any I could come up with:
It’s likely you know someone, are related to someone, or maybe even a parent to someone who’s in this group. You likely love them very much and they may, indeed, be exceptionally lovable. You certainly don’t want to hurt them, and, in fact, that may be the reason you’ve hesitated to say anything about their professed identity. Setting aside the scurrilous knee-jerk accusations of “hatred” and “phobia” that inevitably accompany any skepticism, or even, ironically, curiosity about the meaning of the Pride movement, the search for clarity should recognize that addressing the topic honestly may cause real, even if unintended, pain to good people. And so it goes without saying, to draw on Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical, that truth must never be separated from charity.
That said, both truth and charity demand at this point that we face up to the connection between the LGBTQ movement and the forces of darkness.
Here’s the way I see it now. Obviously not everyone marching in Pride parades is interested in my children or anybody’s children. And of course, they’re not all Satanists. But I just don’t buy that the growth of their movement and normalization of their identity and lifestyle is a mere “coming out,” or simply bringing to light what has always been confined to the shadows.
The number of LGBTQ adults has doubled in just ten years, with staggering numbers among 18-25 year-olds (21%). The number of transgender youth has doubled in five years. There is objectively some kind of rapid social contagion at work, and from a Catholic perspective, especially in light of the explicit Satanic messaging of at least some portion of the LGBTQ movement, it appears to be more like a sudden-onset possession.
Christians have forgotten how to evangelize pagans, and mainstream scientism has made us ignorant of spiritual warfare. It is therefore no surprise that we are stuck in the same long retreat that we have been in since at least the late 1960s, always trying to adapt our message to the Zeitgeist, or at least congratulating ourselves for our winsomeness and our avoidance of making a fuss. Meanwhile, things are getting much worse, much faster. We can’t stand by anymore when the door to our public square is kicked open wider to the Enemy and his servants every June. I’m not sanguine about victory, but we shouldn’t just surrender. Let’s strategize.
One simple message that I saw emerge this year for the first time in my memory is the wider promotion of June as the month of the Sacred Heart, complete with flags. Because Pride is both so sacrosanct and so ubiquitous, suggesting the celebration of anything else during this month will appear counter-cultural. And we must appear counter-cultural now. The USCCB’s invitation to pray an act of reparation on the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart—something which emerged from the scandal at Dodger Stadium—ought to become normal for Catholics as one activity that resists the flow of progress.
Moreover, clearly the Target and Bud Light boycotts are working. After so many failed attempts over the years, it’s finally time for Catholics to be the people whose money is not available to companies that promote anti-Christian values. In the political arena, it should go without saying that we must keep up the fight to remove inappropriate books from school libraries, maintain parental rights over the whims of confused children, and generally foster the traditional family.
Finally, protests like the one against the sisters of Perpetual Indulgence in Los Angeles may have to become de rigeur. Catholic men, in particular, ought to organize and make their peaceful presence felt at Pride marches in every city, every year from now on. We see what happens when we evacuate the public square, and even a small but predictable presence may change Satan’s calculus.
I don’t think I’ll be going back to write at the IKEA café. I’m grateful for a more stable perch these days, where no rainbow flags fly. But as Pride month winds down, I’m resisting the temptation just to be rid of it on July 1 and move on. Instead, I’m imagining what next year may hold, and I encourage all Catholics to do the same.
St. Paul tells us, “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12).
The time for valor in this struggle has only just begun.
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The more the devil is frightened, the more furious he gets (Fr.G.Amorth, the sign of the exorcist, Piemme, Milano- Italy, 2013, p. 130)
Disillusioned and confused Admiral Levine (Biden’s assistant secretary for health) says it’s no longer just Pride month, now it’s “Summer of Pride”. ⚡️😠⚡️
C. Everett Koop must be rolling in his grave.
Great essay Andrew. I could not agree more. Despite the decline of our culture we still live in a country where, at least for now, we can still engage in acts of public counter-witness. And by the way, my thousands of books still reside on book shelves from Ikea. But they were purchased long before our current cultural insanity set in. But it only goes to show that one of the things we have going for us is that these companies exist in order to make money from selling products people want. And Ikea became hugely successful because it sold Euro-fashionable merchandise at an affordable price and not because they were woke. We need to help such corporations see that they should return to their roots and to stop endorsing social engineering projects. And as the Bud Light and Target boycotts show, if we hit them in the profit margin they do back off, at least for a time.
Thanks, Larry. Yes, our house is full of BILLY bookcases and every type of HEMNES that place sells. And we may end up buying more. But we’re never setting foot in Target again, and not because there are obviously better options from a moral standpoint. I think that even to cut out a few of the most egregious offenders is better than nothing. Our captivity to the market is very bad for our souls. No matter how much religious liberty we are able to maintain for ourselves, most of us will still have to live amid the totalitarianism of the new secular religion every time we leave the house.
No, it’s not enough. Support NONE of them. First of all, look for American-made goods, & buy them as needed. Six pair of USA-made underwear cost me $85 (with tax/shipping). but I’m so finished with supporting the CCP, for example. No cable TV for me, no Nike, no pro sports, no IKEA, no Target, no Amazon, no Walmart, no Starbucks, no Girl Scout cookies – NONE of it. Is it difficult? Sure, but if one has principles – which not too many actually understand these days – one must act on them. Stop pandering & stand up for what’s right – no matter the cost.
Hear, Hear, Dr. Chapp!
Boycotts are of course not the end-all-be-all, but they do have a legitimate place in civil protest. Indeed, I have also advocated joining in boycotts of various media organizations, and in particular the Disney Company because of its blatant advocacy and promotion of immoral and physically destructive behavior in many of its recent movies and TV programs.
In fact, at least 2 recent movies produced by Disney contain advocacy of the despicable “transgender” movement, including the mutilation of children in a few brief scenes in the recent “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” movie that too many people downplay or ignore because they rationalize that the malevolent scenes are very short (What a cop-out! Advocacy of mutilating children only lasted for a few seconds, so ‘no big deal, no real harm’…even though these horrendous short scenes will very likely be succeeded by longer such scenes in future movies as history amply demonstrates is a recognized pattern of such propaganda efforts.), and they also promote what they judge to be good things in the “diversity” message and other messages in the film. As such, they praise Disney, and they give Disney their money so Disney can continue to wage its malevolent war on sound, natural law morality that is part of the basic goodness of traditional Western culture.
Yes.
“A friend sent me a picture of the same standard flying outside the U.S. Consulate in Krakow, Poland, and I am told it’s the same all around the world.”
Actually, no. While our ‘Catholique’ president flies the rainbow flag at the White House and at the U.S. Embassy to the Vatican and throughout Europe and South America, he somehow declines to fly it at our embassies in Muslim countries.
Coincidence? I think not.
Apparently he’s sufficiently assured of the cravenness and docility of us Catholics and our church’s leadership to know he can insult and mock our faith with impunity.
I wonder that that has anything to do with the more than one Billion children worldwide whom Democrats have been responsible for killing while raking in half of all Catholics’ votes over the past fifty years.
Still voting Democrat, all of you Catholics?
Hmh?
I’m not sure that a Republican vote is moral anymore either. Politics have become very immoral of late and we, as Christians, must do some serious soul searching. It may be better to “throw away a vote”, than to sell out our souls to the devil. We must shout out our protests from the housetops as long as we are able, but we can not ever compromise our principles. I still think that it may be possible to form a viable third party espousing traditional moral values. There is still a large base, a “ silent majority, in this country that is fed up with the way things are going. Let’s unite while we still can. May God bless us all.
I’m sorry, James Connor, but you cannot lie to yourself about your vote for Democrats not being any worse than a vote for Republicans. Not after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
Justices appointed by Republicans have saved more than 200,000 children’s lives to date — and counting.
Are Republicans perfect?
Absolutely not. Many are quite contemptible.
But, in their favor, they all do at least have this in common: They’re not Democrats.
I thought by throwing away a vote he meant to not vote at all.
Ann, yes, I agree. That’s what he was talking about.
But not voting against the death-dealing Democrats is as evil as voting for them.
The old description of the two parties is as apt now as it’s ever been: The Stupid Party vs. the Evil Party.
We must resist the evil by voting for whatever alternative is available. Even if it’s stupid.
Sloppy thinking like James’ is why Catholics have been voting Democratic for the past half century during which time more than a billion children have been murdered worldwide at the behest of America.
The time to stop this unthinkable evil was 1974.
So please, James and Ann, don’t urge us to continue to enable the greatest evil humanity has ever seen.
Not so fast, Brineyman!! About the careful posture toward Muslims, I mean. In terms of bending over backwards, so to speak, why do we find this curious inclusiveness in the Synods Instrumentum Laboris?
“6) How can we create spaces where those who feel hurt by the Church and unwelcomed by the community feel recognised, received, free to ask questions and not judged? In the light of the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia, what concrete steps are needed to welcome those who feel excluded from the Church because of their status or sexuality (for example, remarried divorcees, people in polygamous marriages [!], LGBTQ+ people, etc.)?”
These are the children of the sexual revolution, the children of Father Charles Curran and the young priests of 1968 who thought they knew better than Pope Paul and rebelled against Humanae Vitae out of intellectual arrogance, out of pride.
And so ever since our water supplies have been polluted by the by-products of widespread use of endocrine-affecting pharmaceuticals (note, this includes testosterone use by guys who “just want to feel better” as well as various birth control methods), none of which water treatment systems filter out. Who knows what effects these may have had on these young people’s systems growing up. There is apparently evidence that such chemicals have affected fish and amphibians out in the ecosystem, but no young scientist who wants to ever make tenure is going to touch the idea that the same chemicals might also be affecting human behaviors.
And of course the parallel pollutions of conceptual thought that allow even the majority of Catholics apparently to accept the idea that these different sexual expressions are something to be accepted. Just like the HV rebels, just like every Catholic couple who “thought they knew better” and contracepted, and the priests who told them its was okay, intellectual arrogance, pride, has been all around us.
So we need to keep in mind that the greatest culpability is not with those, mostly young, out parading, but upstream. Yes, as the author points out, with spiritual principalities and powers of evil, but also with their proud, intellectually arrogant elders. We are looking perhaps at the children of the damned.
Hear, hear. Applause from me.
“We can’t stand by anymore when the door to our public square is kicked open wider to the Enemy and his servants every June.”
According to conventional “wisdom,” all a person can do is counter-protest or boycott. There are laws against indecent exposure. Why didn’t the police arrest anyone?
There ought to be laws against promoting immorality. Then these evil people could and ought to be be arrested.
Also, presumably there is a permit required for public events. Why aren’t these being denied on the grounds of morality?
Articles like this are a part of the problem. So long as “Pride” is publicized, then it is promoted. Also, the entire phenomenon is likely a form of astroturfing. My understanding is that investors reward/punish certain companies for their promotion/silence, respectively, of this evil. This is something for a lawsuit or maybe law enforcement to look into.
The Human Rights campaign rewards corporations with higher standing in their Equality Index depending on what degree they support or perhaps capitulate to the SSA & gender confused populations.
You can go to the HRC website & see how each corporation ranks accordingly. From an orthodox Judeo-Christian perspective at least, financial institutions are some of the worst offenders.
Corporate Equality Index 2022
Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s Corporate Equality Index is the national benchmarking tool on corporate policies, practices and benefits pertinent to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer employees.
“Since its launch in 2002, employees, consumers and investors have used the CEI as a comprehensive tool to determine what a company’s policies are before they accept a job, buy a product or invest their money.”
https://www.hrc.org/resources/corporate-equality-index
“We’re here, we’re queer,we’re coming for your children.” We need to see that evil has its own religious practices and they are are purposefully the opposite of ours. This is not your nice friend who is gay any more. This is evil presenting itself as good, but it will not tolerate you. God hates this. Jesus cast demons out. He didn’t charm them with sacred heart emojis. This is happening on the church’s watch. Not good. Ezekiel 14.
The phrase we’re coming for your children is used mockingly because they claim to not be. At least not in the systematic way of which they are accused, that pederasty is their way of regenerating their kind. But the whole thing is just so wrong on every possible level that whether what they say or not is ever true doesn’t matter because in some people’s lives the truth becomes falsehood.
I think these folks suffer both from public debauchery & psychic pain. Behind every man dressed in garish costumes or exposing their nudity you probably have someone who has experienced past abuse.
One of the red flags for suspected child molestation is when very young children begin acting out sexually with others. Friends of ours discovered that sadly when they adopted a 4-year-old girl who had been living in a homeless camp & had experienced abuse. She modeled the sort of behaviors she had been subjected to.
I’m guessing a number of the folks in these parades have similar stories & pain. Abuse is the gift that keeps on giving.
The connection between abuse and sexual perversion was well known by the medical community before the American Psychiatric Association was forced to remove homosexuality from the DSM because of threats of physical violence. There was no reasoning involved.
so, how did they get out of it and back common sense and morality?
(in ancient Greece).
and- at least they wont be breeding….
We read: “The number of LGBTQ adults has doubled in just ten years, with staggering numbers among 18-25 year-olds (21%). The number of transgender youth has doubled in five years.”
It ain’t genetic!
“…Late marriages and small families became the rule, and men satisfied their sexual instincts by homosexuality or by relations with slaves and prostitutes. This aversion to marriage and the deliberate restriction of the family by the practice of infanticide and abortion was undoubtedly the main cause of the decline of ancient Greece, as Polybius pointed out in the second century B.C. And the same factors were equally powerful in the society of the Empire. . . .” (discovered as an undergrad when it hit the shelves: Christopher Dawson, “The Patriarchal Family in History,” in The Dynamics of World History, 1962).
Like Nero, Synodality fiddles while Rome and the entire Western world burns.
Proverbs 16:18
“The number of LGBTQ adults has doubled in just ten years, with staggering numbers among 18-25 year-olds (21%). The number of transgender youth has doubled in five years.” Is it any wonder? Seeing that they’re grabbing innocent children as early as preschool and introducing this insanity into those pure little minds? Drag queen reading hours in our libraries? Woke teachers pushing these ideas all through their youth? Of course it’s the 18-25 year olds who are the victims bearing the brunt of it! Woe to those through whom scandal comes…..the millstone awaits!
My “yes” comment was in reply to the article, particularly the last sentence.
Human Rights Watch is a duplicitous name that fools many people. Cf. the SPLC and our own (Canadian) MAiD.
I’m heartbroken by the lack of love, compassion and care for our fellow human beings in this post and the responses. Love…where is it in this post? I’m so incredibly sad that the live that passes all understanding is nowhere to be found here.
Donna, don’t be fooled.
The whole “God’s love is radically inclusive” argument for normalizing sexual sin is spurious.
God’s love *is* totally inclusive. And it is precisely for that reason that His love will not — *can* not — bless or validate or consecrate sin.
Sin desecrates. Destroys. Kills.
The suicide rate is much higher among the gay population than among heterosexuals. And among transsexuals it is much higher even than among gays.
That is an unspeakable tragedy and points to terrible suffering.
Our sins will be forgiven only if we repent of them and make the decision to amend our lives.
Which is why sin can never be accepted or encouraged or blessed by the Church.
That doesn’t point to a lack of love.
In fact, on the contrary, it bespeaks an infinite, sacrificial, divine love.
Donna, telling the truth is love. We can do that in a harsh, unloving way because of the wrong motivations. Human beings are imperfect and broken and we can act out of pride or anger. But the truth about biology and human physiology is the truth.
When we stray from that we can be vulnerable to almost any other delusion. Like eugenics or witch hunting. Or the Soviet fake science adopted by Maoist China that led to a terrible famine in the early 1960s.
I’m disappointed that you think enabling sin is love, Donna.
There is no love independent of the Truth. Dishonoring the truth and supporting lies is not love, it’s disobedience.
The mainstreaming of these deviants is the problem. And I do not mean to imply that gay persons are deviant, those who MUST overtly express and force their nudity, sexual performances, and inappropriate behaviors in public are the deviants. They have taken perversion to a never before seen level, and We, The People, must accept it. I think not, and I am not alone in this, as was recently proven over the last several months.
At first it was acceptance of their lifestyle choice, then it became “love who love”, then it went to legal marriage, now it is part of education and hiring mandates.
Where does this madness end? Kiss who you want to kiss. Make the beneficiary of your estate whomever you like. But do not tell me, or my children that this is normal and WE MUSY adhere to your ideology.
They have taken the rainbow and skewed it’s message. But, it is not God’s rainbow, God’s rainbow has 7 colors, and theirs only has 6. As stated in the assay above, celebrate June for the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. We can take it back and we will.
Any Catholic or Christian who votes for any DEMONcratic candidate is voting for the promulgation of these blasphemous practices. They openly embrace Satan and the image of Baphomet. They sexualize everything, for what purpose. They want to read to 5-8 year olds, dressed as sexualized monsters, why? Why don’t they have drag queen story hour at the nursing home, I bet those old folks would love some company?
We must no longer be silent and reactive. We must be pro-active every single day. I wear my faith on my clothing, and know that it triggers people. I want them to see that I am a man of God and will not back down to their evil and wickedness.
Meanwhile a whole Month for Pride! but one day for our Vets!,that fought for yes even their freedom!
Where is Pope Francis on all of this? Where are our Cardinals, Bishops and priests? Why isn’t this stuff preached from the pulpits? It starts with the clergy and our so called “Catholic President”! It’s time to revolt and let a little ‘Wrath of God” happen!
Pride parades and exhibits are now the Mardi Gras for those bored individuals who do not live in New Orleans or Mobile, Al. Ok by me if one wants to waste their time with all of that, but leave those under 25 years old out of it.
Never capitulate to intrinsically disordered deviants.
As the great St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (aka Edith Stein; murdered at Auschwitz) brilliantly set forth:
“Do not accept anything as love which lacks truth.”
Have you had this conversation with your friend in Nashville or did you just write a long essay referencing him? If you say it’s time for “valor,” then writing essays that you secretly hope your friends and family won’t read because you are afraid they’ll stage a boycott of their own and no longer engage with you is just weak. This is not a brave or valorous author.
“Obviously not everyone marching in Pride parades is interested in my children or anybody’s children. And of course, they’re not all Satanists.”
Sorry, I don’t agree. It’s come to the point where, IMHO, ANYONE who supports the alphabet crowd agenda is a pedophile & a satanist. There’s no other way to look at it. Yes, pray for their repentance & conversion, but be aware enough to know what the end-game is – removing God, glorifying satan, & they really ARE coming for our children. Full stop.