The annual LGBT Pride marches and celebrations each June are already a liberal-leaning affair, from the pro-gun-control and pro-abortion paraphernalia often spotted at events to the explicit exclusion of pro-Trump gay groups in some cities. However, for some radical left-wingers, the official Pride movement isn’t leftist or censorious enough. On Sunday in New York City, activists will march in the second annual alternative “Queer Liberation March.”
The Reclaim Pride NYC organization is sponsoring the event, as part of their effort to reclaim the LGBT pride movement from perceived corporatization and mainstreaming. In their alternative march, police groups will be banned (they are allowed to participate in regular pride marches), and corporations and businesses are rejected.
THIS SUNDAY. No cops. No corporations. No permits. NO BS. Join us to reclaim the roots of pride and center the fight for Black lives and against police brutality. #QueerLiberationMarch pic.twitter.com/F1ggjQX1OM
— Reclaim Pride Coalition (@queermarch) June 22, 2020
The march is openly leftist in its slant and conflates the gay and transgender movement with an entire host of radical, left-wing political causes. In doing so, it erases the individuality of gay and transgender people — who have no moral obligation or logical reason to think a certain way on any political issue outside of gay and transgender rights.
You wouldn’t think that from reading the “Queer Liberation March” platform, though. Consider this portion:
These leftist activists openly argue that “queer liberation” — the word gay apparently isn’t woke or victimhood-laced enough anymore — is wound up with “resistance against police,” shared opposition to capitalism and corporations, a rejection of “neoliberalism,” an embrace of leftist foreign policy and a certain view on the issue of climate change. Funny how none of these things actually have anything to do with the freedom to live your life as a gay or transgender individual. It’s shocking that this needs to be said, but who you go to bed with at night has no bearing on how you ought to view Middle East foreign policy or where you must fall on the debate over criminal justice reform.
The reductionist and radical worldview laid out in this organization’s platform was on full display at the inaugural 2019 “Queer Liberation March” last year, which drew approximately 45,000 attendees.
According to progressive media reports, the march featured “several leather and leather-adjacent groups … including New York City Pups and Handlers, Lesbian Sex Mafia, and a number of leather titleholders. Even on a warm summer day, plenty were clad in head-to-toe leather, latex and/or rubber — others wore not much at all, beyond a pup hood.”
Marchers at the 2019 event chanted “F— Chick-fil-A!,” “Black Lives Matter,” “Abolish ICE,” “F— the Police,” and other leftist slogans.
In a particularly demonstrative example of how this activist movement’s illiberal worldview has turned into outright anti-gay bigotry, it barred the Gay Officers Action League, a group of gay law enforcement officers, from participating in the rally because leaders concluded that “the N.Y.P.D. as an institution, as a whole, is a racist one, and therefore having any representation of it wasn’t proper.”
Here are some photos from last year’s march that give you a good sense of what it was like:
LOL: On Sunday, NYC activists will have their second “Queer Liberation March.” Let’s look at some photos from last year… ??? pic.twitter.com/H96TEEHxgZ
— Brad Polumbo ?? ?️? (@brad_polumbo) June 26, 2020
— Brad Polumbo ?? ?️? (@brad_polumbo) June 26, 2020
A similar political extremism will dominate this year’s event as well. So let’s be clear about one thing: This kind of radical, left-wing gay and transgender activism does not advance acceptance and tolerance for gay and transgender people.
It does the opposite. By lumping in “queer liberation” with extremist, left-wing policies such as abolishing borders and anti-capitalism and tying it to extreme sexual fetishism such as “pups and handlers,” activists only set back progress and mainstream acceptance.
Such left-wing activism is really just a cynical attempt to use the increasingly mainstream, bipartisan acceptance of gay and transgender people and rights as a Trojan horse for a leftist takeover of society. It is a political exploitation of progress, not an advancement of it. It’s one that will only backfire. If activists succeed in tying, to any extent, gay and transgender acceptance to this unhinged agenda, it will only result in acceptance of gay and transgender people losing public support.
Of course, these people have every right to hold this rally, as distasteful as their cause may be. All power to them if they wish to make the (intellectually and morally bankrupt) case for leftist policies and public sexual fetishism — but they should do it without tying it to gay and transgender identities. As a gay person, I don’t accept any of their ideological demands, and many of my peers, even “neoliberal” Democrat-leaning ones, would undoubtedly agree with me, at least in part.
Only a reductive, illiberal movement would assume that sexual orientation or gender identity must define a person and inherently constrains them to a leftist worldview. It’s not progress but rather a new form of woke oppression to demand that support for equality and valid gay and transgender identity require a full-throated embrace of a left-wing political agenda.
Let’s hope this noxious form of “queer liberation” doesn’t catch on anytime soon.
Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo) is a freelance journalist and Washington Examiner contributor.
