June 1 is on the horizon, which means it’s time to get ready for the unrelenting parade of woke silliness and partisan chicanery now known as LGBTQIA+ Pride Month.
The planning is long since underway, and New York City’s Pride movement just reminded us how intolerant many LGBT activists have become in their own right. The organization that runs the city’s annual Pride events, Heritage of Pride, has come out and banned police officers from participating in its events. It also reportedly plans to rely as much as possible on private security services over the New York Police Department for event security services.
“We know many LGBT cops,” Heritage of Pride Co-Chairman Andre Thomas told ABC News. “But what the institution represents sometimes to a person of color or trans person is violence, and that doesn’t make you feel safe. So that’s the perspective we’re coming from. And it’s a difficult place to be. But we know that’s what our community expects of us at this time.”
Don’t misunderstand me. We can, and we should have meaningful conversations about reforms to improve policing in this country. I’ve suggested commonsense reforms in these very pages. In the same way, we should address bad actors in law enforcement and reform bad laws that hurt disadvantaged communities.
But to target, vilify, and scapegoat all police officers openly in this manner is beyond the pale. It’s an insult to those who risk their lives to keep us safe, a betrayal of true tolerance, and a homophobic attack on gay officers. The police’s response to the ban makes this first point plain.
“The idea of officers being excluded is disheartening and runs counter to our shared values of inclusion and tolerance,” the New York Police Department said in a statement. “That said, we’ll still be there to ensure traffic safety and good order during this huge, complex event.”
The bottom line is that law enforcement plays a crucial role in society, and woke left-wing activists are sneering at the very officers who keep them safe. Who do gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender New Yorkers alike call when they’re victimized by crime? Who tracks down and arrests perpetrators of anti-gay hate crimes?
The NYPD.
Vilifying individuals for their job based on abstract notions of collective guilt is the definition of bigotry and the opposite of tolerance — you know, what the gay rights movement once stood for. Woke LGBT activists have become so rapid in their liberal dogma that they are now actively engaging in homophobic discrimination. To ban police is a slap in the face to gay Americans who serve in law enforcement and an insult to gay people more broadly. After all, it suggests that the validity of personal identity depends on woke political approval of a person’s occupation.
The Gay Officers Action League blasted NYC Pride’s move as “shameful” and “dehumanizing.” The league is absolutely right.
Heritage of Pride should reread its own inclusion policy, which says, “We respect, value, and celebrate the unique attributes, characteristics, and perspectives that make each person who they are.” Surely, that must include a person’s occupation and personal views on criminal justice!
The cognitive dissidence here is unreal. As the New York Daily News editorial board notes, “Somehow, people chronically discriminated against — with a shameful history of being sidelined from other parades — see no irony in kicking a group to the curb just because of their jobs.”
Woke activists banning gay police officers from Pride events aren’t just betraying their own principles. They’re falling victim to the same kind of bigotry and intolerance the pride movement was founded to defeat.
Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo) is a Washington Examiner contributor and host of the Breaking Boundaries podcast.
