Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Pride Month was first declared by Bill Clinton on June 2, 2000. Since then, June has been known as LGBT Pride Month across the nation, and is celebrated through various events including pride parades.
One such event, the Charlotte Pride Parade scheduled to take place in Charlotte, North Carolina recently made a hypocritical move by refusing to allow a pro-Trump gay group to participate.
Participation Denied
The group called “Gays for Trump” submitted their application to display a float in Charlotte’s Pride Parade, taking the same steps as every other group seeking to participate. Group spokesman Derek Van Cleve described the group’s float as follows:
“It was going to support Donald Trump. It was going to be a patriotic float with American flags and a few ‘Make American Great Again’ flags. We wanted to have a couple of drag queens on the float dancing in ‘Make America Great Again’ dresses.”
“All we wanted to do is let the community know the gay community does not speak for every single gay,” the group’s leader added. “Not every single lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender citizen is anti-Trump. Some of us love him and some of us support him.”
Despite their seemingly harmless intentions, the pro-Trump faction was denied the privilege to participate – presumably because their politics didn’t align with the contemporary LGBT in America.
Organizers of the Charlotte Pride Parade put on the parade as a way to inspire tolerance and to advocate for the LGBT community. These are the same people who preach tolerance to others. They want to promote acceptance, yet refuse to accept those they perceive as unworthy to participate in their event.
Why The Organizers Wouldn’t Allow Gays for Trump Float
The organization behind the Charlotte Pride parade never clearly stated why they refused the “Gays for Trump” application. A spokesperson for the group did say they have the “right to decline participation at our events to groups or organizations which do not reflect the mission, vision and values of our organization. In the past, we have made similar decisions to decline participation from other organizations espousing anti-LGBTQ religious or public policy statements.”
The statement from the Charlotte Pride representative also said they envision a world where “LGBTQ people are affirmed, respected and included in the full social and civic life of their local communities, free from fear of any discrimination, rejection, and prejudice.”
The statement above outlines the Charlotte Pride organizer’s desire for the LGBT community to be included in everything and not face discrimination. Of course, it seems that only goes so far. It seems to suggest any gay, bisexual, lesbian or transgender individual should expect to be included unless they also happen to like Trump – or anyone else to the right of Che Guevara. That doesn’t seem very inclusive now does it?
The following statement by “Gays for Trump” organizer Brain Talbert best sums it up:
“For a group of people to claim to want tolerance, acceptance, and give it to every single person you can imagine to give it to, for them to sit back and judge me for exercising my right as an American to choose my leader without judgment is hypocritical.”
Conservative Gays Are Silenced Once More
According to Mr. Van Cleve, typical LBGT organizations aren’t diverse at all, ironically. He said, “I’ve been to many pride festivals in the past and it’s pretty much a big DNC convention. It’s extremely liberal.”
One could say the Charlotte Pride organizer’s move to ban the “Gays for Trump” group is, in essence, them sending gay Republicans back into hiding. They are exercising narrow-minded bigotry that would not be tolerated in other settings.
So, why does this matter to conservatives? It matters because a group of pro-Trump people, no matter their sexual preferences, were kept from participating in a public event based solely on whom they voted for.
It is safe to say that the ACLU and all the liberal rabble rousers would be up in arms about this had it been against a group of Democratic supporters. But of course, yet another faction of conservative Americans are forced to live by a different set of rules than everyone else.
Whether a person supports alternative sexual lifestyles or not really isn’t the point. The focus should be on the fact that liberal groups once again expect others to tolerate them and their preferences, but they don’t extend the same courtesy to others. It’s a shame because their message might ring more genuine if they only lived out what they claim to want so much from others, tolerance and inclusion.
~ Conservative Zone
