The city of Boston approved a permit for a Straight Pride Parade last month, one with Milo Yiannopoulos as the grand marshal, no less. And if that weren’t enough sanctioned heterosexual self-celebration for one country, a city in California looks like it might have its own iteration.
CBS News reports that officials in Modesto are trying to decide if they should issue a permit for a straight pride march proposed for next month. The parade purports to celebrate “[h]eterosexuality, masculinity — femininity, babies — born and unborn, Western civilization, our wonderful country and Christianity,” and if that doesn’t sound like enough fun, the parade’s organizer, Don J. Grundmann made it pretty clear to a local CBS affiliate that this is strictly an anti-LGBTQ event.
Per CBS Sacramento:
“Essentially it boils down to two religious views of the world,” Grundmann said. “One is Christianity, which is represented by heterosexuality, a culture of life, and its opponent is the LGBT movement, which is represented by an opposing religion and an opposing view of life.”
Grundmann also said that there is “no such thing as an LGBT Christian who stays LGBT,” and that he’d like to see more straight pride parades nationwide, sentiments that are rightfully raising alarm with some city officials.
Kristi Ah You, one of Modesto’s city council members, told CBS she thought the event constituted hate speech. “I don’t think we need to give a permit for anything that when you go to the [event Facebook page] it talks about whiteness, it talks about western civilization, it talks about being Caucasian. That’s all hate crime stuff to me, that’s not okay,” she said.
Both Boston and Modesto lean pretty liberal, and residents in both cities have complained to city officials about the events, which are clearly intended to antagonize. But, at least in Boston’s case, the city can’t deny permits based on an organization’s values, which makes sense from a First Amendment standpoint even if it means everybody has to put up with a bunch of pointless trolls for a few hours.