For the past two weeks or so, my primary search engines -- Google, Bing, and Yahoo -- would upload with a starting page infused with a rainbow (or rainbows) either upfront or embedded in the background. Sometimes the uploading rainbows were overlayed with photos of men in close proximity with men, women in close proximity with women. On more than one occasion, a photo of a man or of a woman was overlayed that required a second look to confirm that it was indeed a man or a woman.
I get it. The primary Internet gateways were promoting gay pride. I am unsure why, because I'm unsure what is deserving of pride or promotion. Is it the action of advocacy behind the gay-pride movement? Is it the baser instinct: the physical, carnal attraction to one's sex and the willingness to publicly display the attraction?
Putting aside that pride is one of the seven deadly sins (and the most egregious) in Christianity because few of those gayfully proud care, I find little reason one should be prideful for being gay, for being attracted to a member of one's sex. The attraction should invoke no more pride than being attracted to a member of the opposite sex, for being endowed with blue eyes, dark skin, superior height, a high IQ, a specific ethnic heritage, or whatever else was a given at birth and required no willful effort.
But if one is prideful, one should be prideful only of a positive action: a difficult job completed, the forming of a positive habit that supplants a bad habit (e.g., healthful eating and outdoor exercise supplanting junk food and video games), a voluntary charitable act that elevates the benefactor, a heroic or brave deed.
One could argue, I suppose, that organizing, marching, advocating for gay rights are positive actions deserving of pride for those acting. I see it otherwise. Nearly all the action is politically driven, and the politically driven is the coercively driven. It is forcing a view or a lifestyle onto someone who would prefer it otherwise. Most of what I see involved with the gay-pride movement is really a demand for privilege masquerading as a demand for rights.
Outside the political, I still see little I would coin positive. To march, to protest, to rally, to parade are retrograding actions at the core because they are debased by the crowd mentality. The crowd mentality is a stupefying mentality. People in crowds are more susceptible to herding, to the prevarications of a charismatic orator, to engage in public degrading ways they would eschew outside of the enabling cocoon of the crowd. What is done within the crowd setting is rarely down outside it. What is done within the crowd setting is rarely a positive thing.
And who really cares? In the zeitgeist of Western modernity, most (I argue a super-majority) are indifferent to the lifestyles of strangers and acquaintances. Most of us live by a live-and-let-live ethos, even if the lifestyle violates our beliefs, preferences, or good sense. We are roused to interest only because the lifestyle violates our sovereignty or property rights. The propensity to violate further distances gay from pride.
I get it. The primary Internet gateways were promoting gay pride. I am unsure why, because I'm unsure what is deserving of pride or promotion. Is it the action of advocacy behind the gay-pride movement? Is it the baser instinct: the physical, carnal attraction to one's sex and the willingness to publicly display the attraction?
Putting aside that pride is one of the seven deadly sins (and the most egregious) in Christianity because few of those gayfully proud care, I find little reason one should be prideful for being gay, for being attracted to a member of one's sex. The attraction should invoke no more pride than being attracted to a member of the opposite sex, for being endowed with blue eyes, dark skin, superior height, a high IQ, a specific ethnic heritage, or whatever else was a given at birth and required no willful effort.
But if one is prideful, one should be prideful only of a positive action: a difficult job completed, the forming of a positive habit that supplants a bad habit (e.g., healthful eating and outdoor exercise supplanting junk food and video games), a voluntary charitable act that elevates the benefactor, a heroic or brave deed.
One could argue, I suppose, that organizing, marching, advocating for gay rights are positive actions deserving of pride for those acting. I see it otherwise. Nearly all the action is politically driven, and the politically driven is the coercively driven. It is forcing a view or a lifestyle onto someone who would prefer it otherwise. Most of what I see involved with the gay-pride movement is really a demand for privilege masquerading as a demand for rights.
Outside the political, I still see little I would coin positive. To march, to protest, to rally, to parade are retrograding actions at the core because they are debased by the crowd mentality. The crowd mentality is a stupefying mentality. People in crowds are more susceptible to herding, to the prevarications of a charismatic orator, to engage in public degrading ways they would eschew outside of the enabling cocoon of the crowd. What is done within the crowd setting is rarely down outside it. What is done within the crowd setting is rarely a positive thing.
And who really cares? In the zeitgeist of Western modernity, most (I argue a super-majority) are indifferent to the lifestyles of strangers and acquaintances. Most of us live by a live-and-let-live ethos, even if the lifestyle violates our beliefs, preferences, or good sense. We are roused to interest only because the lifestyle violates our sovereignty or property rights. The propensity to violate further distances gay from pride.
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