There are a lot of people for whom a day is set aside each year to recognize them. We spend one Sunday celebrating fathers and another to celebrate mothers. Veterans get a day of their own in November, while Memorial Day commemorates the nation’s soldiers who died in war. Yet for reasons that defy convention, many people have decided to spend an entire month celebrating how some people choose to have sex.
That is the primary thrust of June’s LGBTQ Pride observances. Such events typically have little to do with pride and far more to do with narcissistic exhibitionism. For too many years, we’ve seen too many parades wind through too many public streets featuring all manner of aberrant behavior. The unfortunate irony in this is that most such demonstrations entirely ignore the achievements of those they claim to champion.
Instead of watching leather-clad, middle-aged men showing off, perhaps so-called pride organizers could offer a festival of plays by Tennessee Williams. His Pulitzer Prize-winning works, like "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," have left an indelible mark on American theater. He happened to be a gay guy.
So was composer Aaron Copland. He gave the world a uniquely American style of symphonic music exemplified by inspirational works like "Rodeo," "Fanfare for the Common Man," and "Appalachian Spring." His works are in the music collections of millions of people because he is simply outstanding.
British mathematician Alan Turing was indispensable in breaking Germany’s Enigma Code during World War II. Turing’s intellect helped penetrate Enigma’s 150 quintillion possible configurations, and by doing so, it shortened the war, saving numberless lives. When he wasn’t busy beating the Nazis, Turing was a pioneer in computer technology and artificial intelligence, among other mathematical pursuits. He was also gay.
Businessmen Tim Cook and Peter Thiel are the driving forces in successful, global corporations that improve the lives of billions through their products and services, while delivering tremendous wealth to people who invested in the companies they helmed. Stocks in Apple, Palantir, and PayPal in retirement and pension accounts enrich the lives of millions of Americans who never gave a thought to how these men led their private lives.
Physicist, astronaut and entrepreneur Sally Ride made tremendous strides as the first woman in space and her continuing work to deliver STEM training and education. She was honored by the Navy, which christened a research vessel in her name, and she spoke little of being a lesbian, probably for some of the same reasons that normal people speak little about their sex lives.
These and others who reside under the LGBTQ umbrella have remarkable achievements that have improved the lot of countless others around the globe. These achievements are something in which they can take great pride, yet they are diminished if not completely forgotten by contemporary pride organizers who chose instead to focus on public displays of personal proclivities.
What emerges from all this is a Pride Month that exhibits almost no pride whatsoever in actual achievement, seeking instead to promote and normalize behavior that’s best left behind closed doors. Given that children are routinely exposed to these sorts of performances, it also smacks of indoctrination of young people who ordinarily would have no idea of such things until approaching and entering adulthood.
These events also provide political utility for the left. When flamboyant public demonstrations of sexuality are noticed by normal people, a compliant news media is happy to amplify the slander levied against those who see what’s in their face, demonizing them while defending those who put it there in the first place. It’s an inversion of logic and decency.
The republic would do just fine if there weren’t an entire month dedicated to such behavior, and corporate America is coming to that conclusion. National Public Radio reported last week, “Pride celebrations across the country continue to lose out on large sponsorships as corporations, a key source of funding, shrink their affiliation with diversity causes and LGBTQ+ events.”
That may be because these pride parades are not in support of LGBTQ voting rights, access to credit, home ownership, gun ownership, or any other rights they already exercise. Instead, the focus falls on individual behavior, delusions of being in the wrong body, and what appears to be some form of self-worship.
We don’t admire Williams, Copland, Turing, Cook, Thiel, or Ride because of how they lived their private lives. We admire them for their contributions to the greatness of America and our allies. They have earned an event celebrating their achievements, and capping such an observance with a replaying of the 1976 performance of Leonard Bernstein’s piano solo in Rhapsody in Blue with the New York Philharmonic would be magnificent.
Nobody cares that Bernstein was gay because the speed, precision and elegance with which his fingers move across the keyboard — without a scrap of sheet music — are nothing short of astonishing. That America produced such an extraordinary talent is something in which we can all take pride.