What Comes After Pride?

Idahoans are loudly proclaiming that perversion is not welcome here

The controversy over Boise Pride Festival 2022 has become a national story. Political commentators from Christopher Rufo to Allie Beth Stuckey to Tim Pool have picked up on this story, shining a spotlight on the city of Boise. Conservatives from beyond Idaho might be surprised that such a red state could possibly play host to a celebration of perversity, but we know that Boise is a deep blue dot in a sea of red.

Those dots tend to spread. Progressivism has taken over formerly red states such as California, Washington, and Colorado, largely due to the influence of cities such as San Francisco, Seattle, and Denver. Democrats use these big cities as strongholds from which to expand their influence. One way they do that is by pushing the Overton Window on social issues.

Just fourteen years ago, both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton claimed to oppose gay marriage. That same year, the state of California voted to enshrine protection of traditional marriage in their state constitution. A clear majority of Republicans opposed the idea of homosexual marriage.

In 2015, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in Obergefell v. Hodges that states could not prohibit gay marriage.

Since then, every Democrat has jumped on board, claiming there is zero difference between a marriage between a man and a woman, and a marriage between two men. Most Republicans have surrendered as well, with polls showing a clear majority oppose efforts to repeal Obergefell.

What happened?

We like to think that most Americans are clear-thinking rational people, but that’s not an accurate view of human nature. People are creatures of consensus, and most will follow the crowd. Once a small group of activists got the Supreme Court to impose gay marriage on the entire country, most Americans simply shrugged and moved on. Today, as every large corporation dutifully flies the rainbow flag throughout the month of June, and makes so-called pride events a large focus of their charity operations, one might suspect that LGBTQ+ is the new state religion of the United States of America.

Leftists see our seeming acceptance of homosexuality and gay marriage as a sign to keep pushing the envelope. Next came the transgender movement, which has resulted in masculine figures such as Bruce Jenner and Richard Levine telling us with straight faces that they are women, and not only that, but they have always been women. In the same Orwellian manner, IMDB has updated its cast lists for movies such as Inception and Juno to say they starred an actor named Elliott Page, even though no such person existed when those movies were created.

But even having people fired, fined, or arrested for using the wrong pronouns was not enough. It is never enough for the totalitarian left. Now they are coming for our children.

They say it’s all innocent family friendly fun. That is a pernicious lie, of course. The aim is to normalize kinky behavior for children, to get them used to seeing adults in sexual situations, even to involve the children in those situations themselves. There is a word for this: grooming. Twitter will ban you for saying it out loud. They claim it is an anti-gay slur. Consider that.

Is it any wonder that between a quarter and a third of Generation Z now identify as some form of LGBTQ+? Is it any wonder that St. Luke’s now offers gender affirming surgery for Idaho children? St. Luke’s, of course, also sponsors Boise Pride.

Conservatives who think they can meet the left halfway on this issue are woefully naive. Many Republicans have been well trained by media and public schools for the past thirty years and are scared to say anything that comes across as homophobic.

This has to stop.

Some elected leaders are refusing to be cowed. House Majority Leader Mike Moyle issued a great statement yesterday, and I applaud him for not pulling his punches:

“I respectfully request that all sponsors, whether public or private, withdraw their sponsorship and their financial support from this event, which does not reflect the deeply-held values of most Idahoans.

Frankly, I think we need to make good on our purported Republican ideals of being pro-family and pro-marriage. The Boise Pride Festival flies in the face of these ideals, and it’s time we stood up and declared our unwavering support for Idaho’s families and their strongly-held beliefs. Doing so does not make us bigots. We can respect every individual Idahoan without condoning the kinds of displays taking place this weekend.”

House Majority Leader Mike Moyle

Independent gubernatorial candidate Ammon Bundy made a strong statement today as well. His own rally was canceled by the City of Boise, who said that such a man was not welcome in their city. Instead, they are enthusiastically hosting a celebration of deviancy and debauchery.

Even if you have no use for Mr. Bundy, watch the video and ignore the messenger, because the message is important:

In his video he makes two important points. First, many of the corporate sponsors of Boise Pride are members of the Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry, or IACI. These corporations are also some of the largest donors to Governor Brad Little and many of our top legislative leaders. The governor served as president of IACI itself, in fact.

Alex LaBeau, current president of IACI, issued a statement attacking the Idaho Republican Party and our chairwoman Dorothy Moon for taking issue with child drag shows at Boise Pride. He defended the inclusion of children in the drag events, saying they are “designed for youth who are struggling with their identities and want a safe place to express their identity.”

This is the man whose ring Republican politicians in Idaho must kiss if they want to achieve elected office in this state.

I watched Mr. LaBeau testify before the taxation committee during the Special Session last week. He praised the legislature for allocating hundreds of millions of dollars for public education, claiming that this would help fill high tech jobs in Idaho industry going forward. Is Mr. LaBeau satisfied with broken, damaged, and twisted children, so long as they eventually take their place as workers for the corporations he represents?

Imagine being so full of hatred for a political figure like Dorothy Moon that you put yourself on the side of people who are sexually grooming young children.

The second point that Mr. Bundy made was that the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare was also sponsoring Boise Pride. I wrote about DHW and other government agencies who are sponsoring this event for the Idaho Freedom Foundation this week, and to their credit they withdrew their support after receiving many angry phone calls from Idaho taxpayers. To their detriment, they are obviously not going to reclaim the more than $100,000 of taxpayer dollars they have already given to various LGBTQ+ groups throughout our state.

Bundy points out that DHW is completely converged by the LGBTQ+ agenda. All prospective foster parents must complete a training program that was created by the Child Welfare League of America, a progressive group that advocates for gender affirming surgery for minors and supports abortion. The CWLA’s Pride Book is a required text for prospective foster parents. They use PRIDE as an acronym for Parent Resources for Information, Development, and Education, but it is surely no coincidence.

Bundy also claims that children taken into foster care are seven times more likely to be placed with a homosexual couple than with a heterosexual couple. I do not have any source for this, so I want to be careful, but I certainly would not be surprised. The leadership of government agencies like DHW often turn out to be left wing activists, even in a red state like Idaho. Leftists recognize the power of the bureaucracy to move society in their preferred direction, while conservatives want nothing to do with such places. The fact that this particular agency has given six figures to LGBTQ+ organizations over the past two years supports this assertion. We must regain control of our bureaucracy, or they will destroy us from within.

I have been so pleased by the response of Idaho conservatives to this event. The state GOP has been on point, calling the rank and file to action and even sending out a contact list of corporate sponsors. My friends in the IFF have been on this as well, as have national figures like Christopher Rufo. We scored some victories this week by convincing several sponsors, including Zion’s Bank, Idaho Power, and Idaho Central Credit Union to back out. The LGBTQ+ activists crossed a line this year with their child drag show that was too far for even the most milquetoast Republicans.

The battle is not over, however. The child drag show was not cancelled, only postponed. The rest of the festival of debauchery is carrying on as scheduled, including Drag Story Time. There will be more pride fests throughout the state, throughout the year. It is no longer confined to seedy bars and college campuses, and it is no longer restricted to just the month of June. This is our new state religion, and it demands total compliance.

While many of you will be in church, or commemorating the 21st anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, I will be at the parade and festival on Sunday. I will be there to document what is happening, both for IFF and for this newsletter. If I make it home alive I will share all the ghastly details with you. I appreciate your support!

Hat tip to Bryan Hyde for the title inspiration.