It's nearly impossible by now to not know June is so-called "Pride Month." It be traced to “Pride Day” in the 1970s when homosexual activists marched every year to commemorate the Stonewall riot that launched their movement. A half-century later, everything from the U.S. armed forces to breakfast cereal turns gay in June or else gets accused of bigotry, intolerance, and lots of phobias.
Reacting to that culture and its demands, Dr. Matt Ayars of Wesley Biblical Seminary says the “hate” label must be ignored in light of biblical truth.
“Because of our Christian worldview that is affirmed by the Holy Spirit within us, that affirms the message of Scripture,” he told American Family Radio, “that living into destructive lifestyles is actually really, really bad and detrimental to us.”
This year, however, the mandatory celebration of unnatural lifestyles hit a brick wall. Budweiser, the all-American beer brand for barbecues and ball games, faced a grassroots backlash after it hired transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney to pretend he likes to drink Bud Light while pretending to be a biological woman. Anheuser-Busch watched sales of Bud Light plummet 28% through April and May, and its stock price fell approximately 18%.
Over at Target Corp., which has never hidden its support for the LGBT movement, its stock lost approximately $10 billion in valuation when the public learned about “tuckable” women’s swimsuits and pride-themed clothes for babies. Target’s partnership with Erik Carnell, a Satanic-inspired fashion designer (pictured below) who identifies as a “gay trans man,” might have been the last straw.
By now, the public knows how this story goes: The out-and-proud bullies become victims. Even though Carnell’s violent artwork features a guillotine called a “Homophobe Headrest,” he ran to the media to insist he was being slandered as a Satanist. Target claimed people were being mean and even making threats, even though a Washington Post story buried the fact angry homosexual activists were making those violent threats after Target moved Pride merchandise.
Among the rare corporate holdouts is the Texas Rangers ball team, which is the only MLB team that does not recognize Pride Month and homosexuality in its baseball stadium in June. The last time the Rangers did so was in 2003 and the backlash was huge.
"The Rangers are listening to their base," says Jonathan Covey of Texas Values. "They're focusing on the fan experience and being a really good team, and that's a really good thing."
Much like “tuckable” swimsuits, much of the public had never heard until this month about the Ladies of Perpetual Indulgence, a San Francisco-based drag queen group that mocks the Catholic faith and its nuns. The group has since gotten more bad publicity than it ever wanted after the L.A. Dodgers yanked a “Pride Night” invitation only to reverse course under pressure from homosexual activists and California politicians. Even though the bullying tactic worked on the Dodgers, thousands rallied outside Dodge Stadium on June 16 to protest a Major League Baseball team giving an award to a group that mocks Christianity and even Jesus’ death on the cross.
Tommy Valentine of Catholic Vote tells AFN his group urged the Dodgers ball team to distance itself from the drag queens because a faith-mocking group should not be honored by Major League Baseball. That plea was drowned out by the other side, which claimed a victory over "hate" and "intolerance," but Catholic Vote witnessed people rally to its side.
“The outrage from people all over America, Catholic and non-Catholic alike,” he says, “has been tremendous.”
The public spoke with their wallets, too, he says, and donations that poured in to Catholic Vote helped it produce and run the “Dodgers Have Lost Their Way” ad campaign through the summer.
According to Ayars, that is his message to those marching under a "Pride" flag, too: They should not expect caring people to celebrate a harmful, nihilistic, and hedonistic lifestyle.
"We cannot, as Christians," he tells AFN, "just simply be quiet and capitulate because it's easier."
In a related article, “A Christian response to Pride Month,” Dr. Ayars says all people are “image-bearers” of our Creator but “Pride Month” celebrates what is unnatural and harmful to human beings. He writes:
To encourage someone in their unnatural desires is the worst thing for them. Pride Month, then, is a danger to individuals and society. Pride Month is not about freeing persons to be “authentic individuals,” a high virtue of modern Western culture. Far from it. Pride month is about further enslaving individuals to the sin that destroys.
Editor's Note: This story has been updated with comments from Jonathan Covey of Texas Values.
