By Shane Smith

We citizens of the West have recently emerged from a month-long “celebration” of what is known as Pride, no longer just “gay pride.” And, judging from the footage of many of the Pride parades held across the country, one has to wonder just what is actually being celebrated.

Thanks to social media, and the many independent journalists who cover these pride celebrations, we have a much more honest, and far more graphic, understanding of what “Pride” is truly celebrating – total sexual degeneracy – it appears. Footage of the Pride parades, that will never make its way on CNN, depict a procession of mostly men openly flaunting their fetishes and kinks in full view of women and children.

Here are a few examples of the degeneracy I’m talking about: At the Seattle Pride parade this year, a group of stark-naked men rode their bicycles in full view of children. The Minneapolis Pride parade hosted a group self-described as “adult diaper enthusiasts,” complete with their own booth. You don’t even have to be told that the members are all men. You know.

Scantily-clad men dressed up in mocking likeness of women, the “drag queens,” also fill these events. The “furries” are present, as are the men wearing dog masks and little else. Footage of an overweight middle-aged man twerking for attendees of a Minnesota Pride parade can be found on social media. For the sake of your mental wellbeing, I suggest you not look for it.

Other examples abound, and one theme runs through it all: these Pride events have come to represent nothing more than male sexual degeneracy. It’s easy to find images of gay pride marches from several decades ago and they appear nothing like what we see today. What changed? Why did decency cede ground to degeneracy? A recent Gallup poll found that fewer Americans approve of same-sex relationships, and one has to wonder whether the open degeneracy surrounding Pride events has something to do with it.

Pride, though, is much more all-encompassing than a few yearly parades. It has overtaken our culture almost completely. The rainbow flag is everywhere, almost as if an invasive, fundamentalist religion has subtly taken hold.

Biological men, dressed as women, are now invading women’s sports, taking trophies that rightfully belong to their biologically female competitors. Men, dressed as women, are competing, and winning, beauty pageants.

Even the CDC, not wanting to be left off the Pride train, recently gave guidance for “transgender women,” meaning biological men, to breast feed infants. Utterly unreal.

Our schools are being filled with activist teachers and counselors who push these ideas onto their impressionable young students. Illustrated children's books depicting transgenderism and sexual themes far too inappropriate for children, are being stocked on school library shelves. A quick online perusal of several Oklahoma public school library databases show that many of these books are available to students, even in the reddest of states.

Gender ideology, the absurd belief notion that a man can become a woman, and vice versa, is spreading virus-like through academia, medicine, and K-12 schools, leaving children thoroughly confused and psychologically unmoored.

Kids naturally want to be good. They are empathetic and kind. The acolytes of Pride exploit this childlike nature, which appears to be the reason for “Drag Queen Story Hour,” and many other Pride-themed events aimed at kids. One word for it would be grooming.

Many children’s hospitals across the country perform “gender-affirming” surgery. This refers to removing a girls’ breasts, surgically altering their genitalia, or giving them a cocktail of hormones to block puberty or better make them appear as the opposite gender. All irreversible, and with horrific side effects.

All of this is occurring under the auspice of “Pride”.

Pride has become a corporate-sponsored, state sanctioned, civic religion. One that we are forced to kneel before, pay tribute to, lest a woke lightning bolt strike us dead, blacklist us from gainful employment and polite society. The Pride flag, once a symbol of alliance between straight and gay, has become amorphous, ever-changing. What will it come to symbolize in ten years?

Many people believe everything written above, but are afraid to say it, because they are afraid to appear hateful. And that is the weapon that the acolytes of Pride use against all of us who understand this pivot toward degeneracy and the attempt to bring our children into the fold before they know better. Pride isn’t about celebrating individuality, but about demanding absolute allegiance to an ever-changing doctrine. Some behaviors should not be tolerated, and many stigmas hold immense value for the safety of others. Do gay men deserve a stigma? No. Do men who expose themselves to children? Certainly. Do ideologically-driven medical professionals deserve scorn for shepherding children into irreversible sex change operations? Absolutely. Does a belief system that advocates for the destigmatization of sexual degeneracy, pediatric sex changes, and the sexual corruption of children deserve to be stamped out from mainstream culture? Without question.

This leads me to another query: Why don’t gay men and women retake their movement? Surely they see that the behavior of the sickos who show up every year at Pride festivals are doing their cause no favors. I would honestly like to know why a parallel movement hasn’t arisen.

We have to face the fact that “Pride” now represents male fetish, male degeneracy, and the erasure of women from sports, from medicine, from life itself. And this movement is being forced upon us by the sports, entertainment, educational, and medical industries. This religion of counterfeit inclusion is everywhere, and if we don’t bend the knee, we become something like an infidel, a member of the damned, and apparently ripe for cancellation or worse.

Let’s retake our disgust response to this movement, and be proud to say so.

Shane Smith is a pro-liberty writer based in Norman, Oklahoma. He blogs at: RepublicReborn.com