An LGBT pride parade has been canceled in the Florida city of Port St. Lucie, and the reason is both incredibly odd and concerning.
Per the report from the Associated Press, the Price Alliance of the Treasure Coast decided to cancel the parade and restrict other events in response to Gov. Ron DeSantis signing a bill meant to protect children from sexualized performances. Drag shows were at the forefront of that legislative push, but many of the things that happen at pride events might also qualify.
Officials in a Florida city have canceled a gay pride parade and restricted other pride events to people 21 years and older in anticipation of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signing a bill meant to keep children out of drag shows.
The Pride Alliance of the Treasure Coast posted Wednesday on Facebook that the decision to change this Saturday’s Pridefest events was made after multiple conversations with Port St. Lucie officials. The city is located about 110 miles (180 kilometers) north of Miami.
“We hope that everyone understands that this is definitely not what we wanted at all and are working with the city to assure our safety as well as produce a positive event,” the post said.
So what’s with the headline of this article? Well, think about how odd and concerning the reasoning here is when you consider how easy it would be to not run afoul of the new law in Florida.
Ask yourself, why would this pride parade need to be canceled if there were no plans to expose children to sexual content? Perhaps I’m old fashioned, but I don’t think it’s really that difficult to not get naked in front of kids. Certainly, it’s no big deal to avoid simulating sex in front of them (or worse). Yet, this pride alliance organization is taking its ball and going home over a law that hasn’t even gone into effect yet. If they never had an intention of crossing any red lines regarding children, then why cancel?
Here’s the perfect meme to describe how this all comes across.
The cancellation of this parade and the subsequent hand-wringing is essentially an admission that, despite claims to the contrary, many of these LGBT events are not child safe. Yet, all over the country, they happen in major cities, with small children being exposed to obscenely sexualized content that would never be allowed in any other context. If conservatives can’t stand against that, then what is the point of the movement? Nothing is more important than protecting kids.
For the moment, in this one town in Florida, children were protected because DeSantis continues to operate at the forefront of the culture wars. That’s the path all Republicans should take, and several other governors are also making moves to close the drag show loophole (including in Tennessee). The GOP must keep the pressure on because the moment you let up in this battle, the degenerate left will win the war.
