Separation of Pride and State
It feels different in this holy month of June. The colors are there, but something has changed.
Consider the evidence. In California, Armenian parents fought pitched battles with pride activists and Antifa at a school board meeting. In Maryland, Muslim parents protested against LGBT curriculum in schools. Moms4Liberty, one of the fastest-growing and powerful conservative parents’ rights groups, were basically called Nazis by the SPLC, leading to massive protests online. The White House faced a major backlash due to the prominent display of the LGBT flag dominating the American flag: Some argued the display violated the flag code.
Continuing the trend of face-planting during a holy month, the White House faced further backlash after inviting a transvestite stripper. He did what transvestite strippers are wont to do: He stripped naked in the White House lawn, thereby compelling the White House to strongly condemn the said clueless stripper, who is now naturally confused about what went wrong.
In some schools students are in open rebellion, refusing to wear anything pride-related, and chanting “my pronouns are USA.” Some parents are talking about how their kids were murdered by gender ideology. Three men apparently vandalized a pride flag. In California, the legislature is considering a draconian new bill that may isolate kids from their parents if they fail to “affirm” the kid’s gender.
In Britain, parents are suing against secretive school curricula. In Canada, Muslim children stomped all over a pride flag.
The headline for a new Gallup poll announces that “Social Conservatism in U.S. Highest in About a Decade.” Around 38 percent of respondents say they are conservative on social issues, the highest since 2012, and around 44 percent say they are economically conservative, also the highest since 2012. Another poll says that Americans now overwhelmingly oppose transgenders in women’s sports.
Political realists are usually reticent and wary about putting too much trust in public opinion. The reasons are twofold. First, as Hans Morgenthau said, the public is usually passionate. It is foolish and egalitarian to think that everyone is either rational or cognizant about the details to make a sound judgement on every aspect of society: The rational grand strategy of a great power is incompatible with the tides of public passion. That is the reason we have electoral and representative democracy.
Second, and more dangerously, public opinion is easily manipulated, through careful propaganda, passionate demagogues, and activist monoculture. The times might change—from ancient Athens, to Edwardian Britain, to every modern revolutionary society in human history, to pre–Iraq War America—but the game remains the same. Socrates died due to mass democracy. Hitler won an election. That is not to say that everyone should seek the comfort of an enlightened mass of bureaucrats. But that is to say that one should be wary of instincts and passions and seek a Platonic balance. The American founders had Plato in mind in designing the republican governing model. It is still the best, most balanced, and timeless model, all things considered.
But a reaction has truly begun to push back a needle that has drifted too far to the left. Unjust laws are unjust. And pride month always had theological underpinnings. This country was designed, rightly or wrongly, to separate state and faith—any faith. Even faith in a supposedly providential theory of history and progress, which somehow still needs state coercion to reach its providential end.
Normal things are easy to spot. They are natural, balanced, and harmonious. The current pride movement is anything but. In an increasingly polytheistic society, we see more rebellion against the current state-mandated religion. To rephrase Thomas Jefferson, sometimes one should encourage a little rebellion.
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