Amid the continued controversy over the City of Boston’s first-ever “Straight Pride Parade,” scheduled for August 31, another “straight pride” event is in the works, though city officials in Modesto, California have not yet decided its fate.
“A flyer circulating on social media posted by the National Straight Pride Coalition says Stanislaus County will host the event August 24th in Modesto’s Graceada Park,” CBS Sacramento reported Monday. Though the flyer presents the event as a done deal, the city is still reviewing the application, the outlet reports — while “phones are ringing off the hook.”
“Join us to celebrate heterosexuality, masculinity, feminity, babies – born and unborn – western civilization, our wonderful country, Christianity — Celebrate Life!” reads the flyer distributed by the National Straight Pride Coalition.
The flyer has sparked strong responses from locals, according to District 3 council member Kristi Ah You, who says the city has received a flood of calls and emails about the proposed event. The council member was willing to go on the record with CBS to underscore that she’s against approving the event because of the National Straight Pride Coalition’s embrace of “whiteness” and “western civilization.”
“I don’t think we need to give a permit for anything that when you go to the page it talks about whiteness, it talks about Western Civilization, it talks about being Caucasian,” Ah You told CBS. “That’s all hate crime stuff to me, that’s not okay.”
The website for the National Straight Pride Coalition declares the “inherent superiority” of heterosexuality, traditional views of masculinity and feminity, “whiteness,” Western Civilization, Christianity, and nationalism. “The purpose/mission of the California Straight Pride Coalition is to defend the children noted above and all current and future generations of all races and colors from being destroyed by the inherent malevolency/evil of the Homosexual/Sodomy Movement toward our founding principles as noted below,” the group’s website states.
“The California division of the National Straight Pride Coalition; in accordance with our national motto of ‘normal, natural, healthy, sane’; invites all people of good will to join us in supporting, endorsing, promoting, reaffirming, defending, and celebrating the inherent superiority of the following foundational principles of life which are under unprecedented, sustained, and coordinated attack within our society, culture, and nation,” the site reads. Among the “principles” listed by the group is “whiteness,” which it describes as “the mass majority biological racial component of the developers of western civilization.”
The group is headed up by Don Grundmann, who presented its mission as being fundamentally opposed to the LGBTQ movement. “Essentially it boils down to two religious views of the world,” said Grundmann, CBS reports. “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.”
The proposed date for the event is a week earlier than the “Straight Pride Parade” that has been approved by the City of Boston. The Boston event is being hosted by “Super Happy Fun America,” which describes itself as advocating “on behalf of the straight community in order to build respect, inclusivity, equality, diversity, unity, solidarity, dignity, social mobility, empowerment, sustainability, justice, awareness, intersectionality, human rights, education, access, participation, dialogue, visibility, tolerance, and alliances with people from all walks of life.”
Related: Boston’s ‘Straight Pride Parade’ Organizers Receive Mysterious Envelopes