Modesto Gay Community Reacts to News of White Supremacist 'Straight Pride'

Media outlets have observed that in contrast to the Boston "Straight Pride" parade that was recently granted a permit – an event organized by individuals who reportedly have ties to white nationalism – the group behind a similar event now being considered in Modesto, California, is much more overt in its white supremacist views.

As reported at EDGE, the Modesto version of a "Straight Pride" parade was announced by a group that calls itself the National Straight Pride Coalition – despite its scope not extending beyond California, and its "coalition" consisting only of itself.

While the group's web page bizarrely conflates "straight pride" with racial identity, it also takes direct aim at the LGBTQ community, doing so in terms that suggest an underlying violent intent. The "Our War Activities" section includes text that mischaracterizes "Drag Time Story Hour," falsely claiming that the activity is sponsored by NAMBLA (a long-discredited group promoting sexual contact between adults and children) and claiming that the story hour is "an extremely advance Social Engineering form of child molestation." The site's home page, meanwhile, sports an array of thumbnail photos of infants, accompanied by the headline "Save the Next Generation of Babies."

Reached for comment by CBS News, the man behind the so-called National Straight Pride Coalition – a failed politician named Don Grundmann, who had mounted nearly half a dozen attempts to win a seat in the U.S. Senate, all unsuccessful – seemed confused about what, exactly, the LGBTQ community is and what's behind its struggle for equality. Grundmann told the news outlet that "the LGBT movement" is a religion, and said that it is in conflict with Christianity, which Grundmann declared "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."

Elsewhere on its site, the group says that it promotes "the inherent superiority" of a number of extreme-right views, including the idea that "Western Civilization" is naturally better than other civilizations ("the West is the Best," the site proclaims), and the notion that "Whiteness/Caucasian" occupies a more exalted status than other racial demographics since, the site argues, whites are "the mass majority biological racial component of the developers of western civilization".

Given that hard-right-wing religious leaders have increasingly called for LGBTQs to be executed, the messages promoted by the National Straight Pride Coalition – and the very idea of a "Straight Pride Parade," when heterosexuals have never endured having their rights, protections, and families assailed by politicians, preachers, and voters – it was perhaps predictable that the local LGBTQ community would feel itself under attack by the event, despite its seemingly ludicrous nature.

That is exactly the case, reported Sacramento news station KTXL. In a video report, the news channel said that Modesto's non-heterosexual community views the so-called "Straight Pride" event as "an attack on their identity." The news about the event had hardly broken when the sexual minorities and their allies crowded into Modesto's Central Valley Pride Center to talk about it.

They also spoke to the media, airing their fears that white supremacists might converge on Modesto with messages of hatred – and, possibly, violent actions. A white supremacist gathering in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017 quickly devolved into a street riot that reached its nadir when a neo-Nazi deliberately plowed his car into a group of peacefully marching counter-protestors, killing one person and injuring dozens of others.

The Modesto Bee reported that discussions at the Central Valley Pride Center involved talk of a counter-protest. One resolution those at the meeting arrived at: The community center will provide "safe space" on the day the event takes place, which is currently slated for Aug. 24.

Modesto's LGBTQ community is not alone in taking umbrage at the event and its messaging, reported SFGate, which reported that the Modesto Progressive Democrats also weighed in.

The group posed a few simple questions at its Facebook page in order to communicate the depth of their outrage and the reasons behind it, SFGate noted.

"Have you ever been fired from a job for being straight? The post queried readers. "Have you been banned from the USA for being Christian? No? That's because it's Straight pride day EVERY DAY."

As was the case in Boston, Modesto city officials said they did not endorse the event by considering granting it a permit. Far from being a matter of honoring ideology, both cities felt compelled to honor the First Amendment rights of the groups making the requests for "Straight Pride" permits.

Neither of those events has, as yet, won final approval, however. Along with a need to honor Constitutional rights, cities must weigh issues of feasibility – and that includes public safety questions.

LGBTQ pride parades have long drawn counter-protestors of their own, but white supremacists seem especially eager, of late, to horn in on the action. Last month, a group of neo-Nazis descended on Motor City Pride in Detroit. The action had been announced on social media beforehand, and Nazis from around the country made their way to Detroit in order to crash the celebration. Though the neo-Nazis did not have a permit, they garnered a police escort, with authorities reportedly believing this was the best way to prevent violence.

View the supportive video message made by the Central Valley Pride Center below.