If we weren't already conditioned to this sort of scene, we might be more shocked by it.
This is Minneapolis City Hall six days ago.
To celebrate Pride, the city hosted an event featuring a drag queen performing a sexual dance for money while a little child looks on.
[Note: That statue is the 120+ year-old “Father of Waters,” or the Mississippi Statue. It was chiseled from a single block of marble in Italy. Around the turn of the last century, a group of civic leaders in Minneapolis funded this work for their city.]
I respect and honor any injustice suffered by gay people throughout history, motivating Gay Pride from the start. As an outsider, though, my question is: Isn’t it crazy how the same group we are being asked to accept and respect then demonstrates themselves in these undignified ways?
It’s like, “Yeah, okay. I don’t want to be homophobic. I want to be kind and loving. Oh look, they’re twerking in front of children.”
Twerking, full frontal nudity, bondage, etc.—photos of each of these and more, from various Pride parades, are abundant.
It’s like the universe is having a good laugh, us being asked to accept evermore off-putting activity.
Perhaps it’s some unconscious desire to see what they can get away with since they have this space to seemingly do what they want. But what I think we’re seeing is a combination of things: exploitation of this total freedom, on this occasion rooted in sexual expression, gay-adjacent groups wanting in on the Pride visibility, and then outside do-gooders wanting to demonstrate their tolerance by cheering on even lewd displays in what had been a most respected, sober space in Minneapolis.
As an aside, I like to think that if I was gay, I’d be all the more averse to these scenes, which give Pride and the gay community a bad image. And, as I’m seeing more of, some gay people are speaking out.
This aversion can apply to most any interest group nowadays, too, because the occasion above is far from the only example of a people, in the name of their cause, taking things too far. Personally, I don’t like seeing high-profile gun rights proponents publicize Christmas cards with their families holding automatic weapons.
And so, for those more on the gun control side of things, it might be tempting to judge all gun rights people as fanatics. Yet, one desires to be peaceful and loving in life and not judge all members of a group negatively. Unfortunately, we’re in a time of polarity and radicalization, testing that desire more and more.
So we’ll be tested, and it will be on us to pass.
-Brandon
p.s. BIG thanks to Carol, who, this week, became my latest paid subscriber. 🙏 I’d love to devote more time to my writing and videos, so thank you so, so much!
I wished I had led with this idea in the Facebook post that inspired this article. But it was in writing that post that this idea germinated.
I see your observations on these issues and I agree that some things are taken too far. Pushing for inclusiveness seems like a game now, or perhaps a publicity stunt, to gain attention or favoritism. On all sides, and with any extreme version of a political idea, identity, or orientation.
Balance isn't the trend now and isn't cool. It doesn't get the clicks. But someday perhaps balance and wisdom will shine again.