If you were to celebrate the Tucson Pride Festival this past February, you were out of luck. Organizers of Tucson Pride had to dissolve their organization and cancel the annual festival, which for some reason wasn’t held during national Pride Month, which is in June.
On a Facebook post, the organizers told their followers that, “This decision was not made lightly…We recognize the deep importance Tucson Pride has held in our community since 1977, serving as a space of visibility, advocacy, celebration, and resilience for nearly five decades.”
The group blamed poor financials, mismanagement, and lower attendance as the reasons for the demise of both the organization and the annual event.
Maybe if you really have a hankering for some Pride, you should go to Orlando in June. That’s when Mickey Mouse’s hometown always has its annual GayDays event. Thousands from all over like to go to this event because of the theme parks and the attractions, we’re told.
Oh, wait! Darn! That one is canceled, too. Organizers of that event have reportedly said the current political climate made it difficult to pull this one off due to several factors, including the loss of sponsors and changes to its facility arrangements.
Related: Disney Without GayDays? The Pride Machine Shows Its First Cracks.
No worries. Americans are big on Pride. Let’s see where we can go for some Pride “festivication.”
How about Tampa? Nope. That one had to suspend its plans for its Pride Festival, Diversity Parade, at least for this year. Organizers of that event said their decision was due to “the current political climate,” among other factors. Dang!
An image from yesterday's Pride Parade in Sacramento, CA. This should be illegal. pic.twitter.com/y0IS9nrXnY
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) June 10, 2024
Hey, I’ve looked around, and Pride Month organizers seem to be in a world of hurt. Arlington, Texas, suspended its Pride celebration for this year after the city council refused to reinstate what organizers described as “LGBTQIA+ anti-discrimination protections.”
Even where Pride Month events are planned, organizers nationwide are reporting some major declines in sponsorship support and increased difficulty in getting local governments to accommodate all of their demands.
New York City’s Pride event organizers have said they’ve seen a decline of $750,000 in sponsorship money. This represents a drop of roughly 20%. In San Francisco, of all places, its Pride organizations said they’ve lost sponsors that have included: Anheuser‑Busch, Comcast, Diageo, and Nissan, representing a loss of $200,000-$300,000.
What happened?
To get a sense of how drastic and sudden the economic and operating climate has been for Pride Month, you have to look at the singular turning point that changed everything – Donald Trump’s defeat of Kamala Harris for the presidency in 2024. That’s right. You voted for this.
Nothing illustrates this more than a recent survey of major corporations, which found that 39% of Fortune-1000 companies said they planned to reduce their support for Pride Month activities. Compare this to 9% in 2024 when Joe Biden was president. Practically overnight, 30% more companies decided to halt sponsorship of Pride month activities.
When organizers of Pride events blamed “the current political climate,” they were at least in part blaming the Trump administration’s curtailment of federal Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs and related support to local communities, companies, and organizations.
Once local DEI programs lost federal support, many companies reduced or eliminated their DEI budgets. Much of that Pride Month sponsorship money came out of those budgets. Companies, nonprofits, and local and state governments that relied on certain federal monies also got a little skittish about continuing their unabashed support of Pride organizations and activities.
On the flip side, once Trump came back into office, these same governments and organizations were no longer as pressured to continue DEI spending that wasn’t critical to their missions.
What much of this reveals is something conservatives already know, but the legacy media, the Democrats, and the entire left didn’t want to admit: the public never wanted or welcomed the whole Pride phenomenon. It was and is a contrived movement to normalize homosexuality and certain perverse lifestyles to make it appear that acceptance is widespread.
If the public wanted all of this, it would have it. There would be a marketplace and citizenry demand for it, but there's none.
To be sure, there is an even darker side to this. In recent years, Pride events have gone from being a celebration of Sodom and Gomorrah by adults for adults to an exploding number of events organized by deviant adults for children. Witness the rise in drag queen storybook hours and all of the Pride month events that specifically target innocent children.
🇺🇸During the Pride parade in Seattle, a drag queen began to snatch children from the crowd and dance with them.
— Attentive Media (@AttentiveCEE) July 1, 2024
This is not self-expression, but propaganda and an attempt to instill certain behaviors in children, to program their minds.#USA #America #SeattlePride2024… pic.twitter.com/8InwFOLuPB
Most normal Americans never asked for that, never liked it, and wanted it to go away. Thanks to the Trump administration, much of that has happened. And so, you may notice that this June across America, you will see far fewer rainbow flags flying, fewer men in leather and dog collars "marching" in public, and perhaps best of all, fewer drag queen events aimed at messing with the minds of young children. Had Harris and Tim Walz won in 2024, and if the Democrats win the midterms this year, the scene below would be the "new norm."
Video of a children's Pride parade, where little boys in rainbow skirts march through the streets in matching outfits that say "WALZ! WALZ! WALZ!"
— Gays Against Groomers (@againstgrmrs) September 11, 2024
This is sick.
If this doesn't rub you the wrong way, then you need a reality check
Absolutely shameful to allow this in public 🤢 pic.twitter.com/VsZC6BtUrD
So far, this is real cultural progress for conservatives. Don't underestimate what’s been accomplished here. Don't underestimate the fact that if Democrats regain power, they will bring all of this deviancy back. This is one issue that may have gotten lost as we look ahead to the 2026 midterms, but it's as real as ever. We haven't won on it yet, but conservatives are winning, and Republicans can't let voters forget.
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