Small Town Pride

LGBT pride is not just for the cities anymore

   I recently moved from Hennepin County to McLeod County, about an hour southwest of the Twin Cities. One difference I anticipated between these two counties was that McLeod would be less friendly to the gay Pride scene than Hennepin was. That seems to be the case on the whole, but I’ve learned since moving that the rainbow brigade does have a presence in rural Minnesota.

   I think many conservatives mistakenly imagine that the extreme LGBT culture and ideology are locked away in the big cities. Places like Minneapolis and St. Paul are certainly where Pride has the most power, but it isn’t staying there.

   Small-town communities all over Minnesota have had Pride organizations popping up in recent years. This year, the group Pride of McLeod County organized its first official event, a “Pride Picnic” at Rotary Park in Hutchinson. The event was advertised as a family-friendly potluck picnic with yard games and a food truck. Other small towns such as Grand Rapids, Albert Lea, Litchfield, and Pine City have seen their own local Pride groups and events popping up over the past several years

   To get an idea for what these outstate Pride events look like, consider the brand-new Itasca Pride, which had it’s first event just days ago on Sunday, June 23^rd in Grand Rapids. On Facebook, it was advertised that the event would include “nonprofit tables, vendors, live music, and entertainment for the whole family.”

   In footage shared by Alpha News on Facebook, we see that Itasca Pride’s “family friendly” entertainment included a drag queen performing in revealing clothing. At least one young child is visible in the audience during the short clip.

   Last year, a video went viral of Pride marchers chanting, “We’re here. We’re queer. We’re coming for your children.” Evidently, they were sincere, even if your children are tucked away in  outstate Minnesota.

   With all of that said, what can we do about it?

   First, you can increase your awareness of your surroundings. If you haven’t already, I highly encourage you to Google the name of your town or county along with the word “pride.” My cursory internet searching revealed the localities listed earlier in this article, but I didn’t comb through every jurisdiction in the state. It’s highly likely that you’ll find some organized group of activists in your area who want to promote Pride to your community, whether it’s a Facebook group or a fully recognized non-profit.

   In either case, once you identify such a group, monitor their online activity. Check in on their website or social media every so often to see if they are planning any events, and if they are, go to your city council or county board and let them know that you don’t want any Pride picnics, parades, or festivals in your neighborhood. Get your neighbors to do the same. If you get pushback from local officials or fellow citizens, show them the footage from Itasca Pride or this reporting from Tenet Media and ask them to explain why such events are good for the community, especially if children are going to be in attendance. Small towns are the places where regular people  have the best chance of getting their way, but we have to be willing to push for what we want.

   In that vein, I’d like to conclude with a bit of encouragement. It may be that you have one of these Pride groups in your area and you don’t want them to put on an event in your town next June, but you don’t feel comfortable objecting. Especially if the event is advertised as being family-friendly, you may feel that you have no right to object. After all, if there isn’t any public nudity or drag queens twerking in front of children, how can we make the case that these events are bad for the community and ought to be prohibited?

   There’s only one thing you need to know in order to confidently oppose any Pride event, no matter how seemingly innocuous, and that thing is this; the Pride flag is an evil and harmful symbol.

   Any Pride event is going to feature the Pride flag. Whether it’s a parade, an “all-ages queer dance party,” or a simple potluck picnic, the rainbow banner will be flying over the heads of everybody in attendance. And what does that flag – especially the more recent version with the blue, pink, and white stripes – represent? It represents a movement to eradicate the distinctions between men and women. It represents a movement to dissolve the integrity of marriage as an institution by equating a union between a homosexual couple to a union between a man and a woman who bear and raise children together. It represents excentric sexual behaviors and desires, along with the idea that there should be no limits on what people can do to pursue sexual gratification. It represents the belief that minors are sexual beings who should be encouraged to pursue their sexual desires, regardless of the authorities in their lives. It represents a movement that tells children with excentric sexual desires to open up about their sexuality in secret to adults other than their parents and guardians. Through and over all of those things, the flag represents pride, the deadly sin.

   There is no such thing as an innocent, family-friendly event with that flag flying overhead. Such an event ought to be as taboo as a block party with swastikas or pentagrams. The Pride flag is just as evil. It may be difficult to fully persuade your city council of that argument, but you can believe it, and if you do, surely you ought to do what you can to keep such events from taking place in your city. And if enough normal, decent people have the courage to object to such socially poisonous wickedness, you may just succeed.

   To that point, there is still one Pride event coming up that I’m aware of in Carver County on August 31^st at the Carver County Fairgrounds. If you’re a resident of Carver County, consider getting in touch with your county board and letting them know that you don’t want this event in your neighborhood. This is the first year of this event, so now is the time to snuff it out. If it goes on this year, it will be more likely to happen again next year, and the year after, until it’s just as much a fixture as the Twin Cities Pride Parade.

   If you don’t want that, it’s time to risk a little discomfort by pushing back on this aggressive ideology. I hope to hear of many Carver residents pushing to terminate this event in August. And next June, I hope to see many fewer Pride events in rural Minnesota communities.