Pride Month

Now THIS Is Pandering…

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Ugh. These are not the only corporations playing this dishonest and cynical game, as you know. There are so many ethics alarms this junk sets off it’s difficult for me to keep the clanging straight–oooh, can I still say “straight”?

1. The robotic response of companies and organizations falling into lockstep during “Pride Month” (and Black History Month, and…yada yada) has the stench of forced speech about it, like everyone flying swastikas in 1930s Germany. Are the companies afraid not to demonstrate the mandated rainbow obeisance? What does BP have to do with sexual orientations and non-standard sexual practices? Why should a company like that have any input into the conversation at all? Shut up and drill.

2. These phony gestures also indicate obedient mass participation in cultural propaganda and indoctrination. It is an abuse of power and influence, and it doesn’t matter whether the organizations are endorsing kittens or cannibalism. I feel my arm being twisted. I resent it.

3. If these rainbow logos really represented the companies’ values, then they wouldn’t hide them in nations where intolerance reigns. In fact, those are the cultures where the advocacy is most needed and might do the most good.

The bottom line, as those companies’ VPs might say, is that their management and ownership have no genuine values, other than the desire to make money. That’s fine: capitalism works, and the profit motive makes it work, but these facile, empty gestures should be reminders to all that the pandering organizations cannot be trusted or believed whether they are lining up to bow to BLM, DEI, #MeToo, the stupid Wuhan lockdown, or whatever the latest woke fad of the moment happens to be.

Ethics Quiz: “Heterosexual Awesomeness Month”

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Who didn’t see this coming?

And why did it take so long?

Naturally, the reaction was explosive on both sides of the, uh, well, both sides. “News about Heterosexual Awesomeness Month has spread worldwide!,” the bar announced in a follow-up social media post. “Many people have asked how they can support us. Owner Mark Fitzpatrick is excited to build a 25,000 sq ft community event center nearby to host events, provide amazing and wholesome food, support conservative ideas, and help true conservatives get elected. So, we started a GiveSendGo fund. For the haters spewing venom, perhaps you feel bad and want to contribute a few dollars now? For the rest of you reasonable people, if you feel inclined to give, please do! May God bless you!”

The Old State Saloon in in Eagle, Idaho, not far from Boise, and its promotional stunt is the work of new owner Mark Fitzpatrick, a South California transplant who bought the bar in 2023 and who describes himself as “a Christian, conservative, Constitution supporter, retired police officer, and family man.”

Ew!

The fact that this promotion is taking place during “Pride Month,” when everyone is supposed shout out hosannas for minority sexual practices while festooning everything in rainbows, means that it is also being taken as a shot across the hallowed bow of wokeness. LGBQ Nation snarks, ” Fitzpatrick claims to have banned a couple of dozen hateful negative Facebook commenters for ‘using horrific words, expletives, using the name of the Lord in vain, etc,’ but it’s hard to tell one heterosexual man’s hate from another’s unbridled excitement.”

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…

Is “Heterosexual Awesomeness Month” unethical?

I’m open to being convinced otherwise, but I think it is a divisive tactic, essentially tit for tat, but inevitable and perhaps necessary. Once upon a time “days” and “months” designated to celebrate particular components of the American melting pot were benign and opportunities for all to signal appreciation for our component cultures. The practice quickly curdled into group chauvinism and anti-majority bigotry with the continued celebration of Black History Month, Women’s History Month and Pride Month. Those groups once arguably needed their “months” to restore self-esteem after long being discriminated against, but now they just resonate as “Who needs whites and men?” exercises in division.

As an aside, anyone who is “proud” of their sex life has problems. I remember when Grant was tiny and we watched “Sesame Street” together, I was consistently amused by a oft repeated number in which a bovine Muppet sang, “I’m proud, proud, proud to be a cow!” “Pride Month” strikes me as similarly excessive. OK, so you’re gay. I don’t care. I’m bald. What do either of us have to be “proud ” about?

If it is unimaginable to have a “Heterosexual Pride Month” or “White Achievement Month” or “Hooray for Men Month,” and it is, then it’s time for those other month-long celebrations to be retired as past their pull dates, and now doing more harm than good.

To that end, I suppose “Heterosexual Awesomeness Month” has a certain “So how do YOU like it?” appeal. Nevertheless, two wrongs don’t make a right.

Added: I have to include that “Proud to be a Cow” song. Here you go…

Ethics Quiz: Those Wacky, Pandering Episcopals

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

I really, literally, couldn’t care less what the Episcopal Church does, or any church, really, as long as it isn’t enabling crimes, abusing its influence or actively making its followers stupid. But…seriously, Episcopals?

From the press release announcing that thing:

In affirmation and celebration of The Episcopal Church’s LGBTQ+ members, the Office of Communication is pleased to unveil a new Pride shield available online for churchwide use. The design retains the upper-left blue corner of The Episcopal Church’s shield logo and incorporates elements of the traditional Pride flag as well as the Progress Pride flag and Philadelphia Pride flag. In their use of black, brown, pink, and light-blue diagonal lines, the latter two flags represent intersectional progress in acknowledging people who are often overlooked by the mainstream LGBTQ+ movement: communities of color; the transgender community; and the many thousands harmed by anti-LGBTQ+ policy—from those who lost their lives in the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and ‘90s, to those still disproportionately impacted today…For half a century, Episcopalians have been working toward a greater understanding and radical inclusion of all God’s children. …In June 2023, Presiding Bishop Michael Curry issued a video message of encouragement to “all of my LGBTQ+ family members,” noting, “I believe deep in my soul that God is always seeking to create a world and a society where all are loved, where justice is done, and where the God-given equality of us all is honored in our relationships, in our social arrangements, and in law.” Last month, the church announced the hire of its first gender justice staff officer, a new position called for by the 80th General Convention and dedicated to justice, advocacy, and inclusion work focused on women and LGBTQ+ people.

“In the United States, the bodily autonomy of women and trans people is under attack, and fully 50% of LGBTQ+ Americans live in poverty,” said Aaron Scott, gender justice staff officer. “I am grateful for the care and intention that went into designing this new Pride shield as it not only represents the LGBTQ+ community more fully, but also lifts those who, out of sheer necessity of survival and dignity, have fought the hardest and sacrificed the most for the thriving of all of us.”  

Discuss. I don’t even know how to phrase an ethics quiz in response to this.

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Observations On Washington Nationals “Pride Night”

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

That’s a photo from last night’s Pride celebration at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C., as Nancy Pelosi threw the ceremonial first pitch. Many conservative wags are enjoying themselves, like “Not the Bee,” which mocked, “The Washington National’s baseball team hosted a Pride Night …of course, they had some buffoonish drag queen show up to toss the first pitch. Oh, wait- I’m being told it’s Nancy Pelosi…Fives of people applauded wildly…”

Observations:

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Easy Call: The Target Boycott Is Unethical

/ Jack Marshall / 55 Comments

Most boycotts are unethical; the threatened Target boycott is worse than most.

Target is one of the largest American general-merchandise retailers, with more than 1,900 stores nationwide. Every year, for more than a decade, it has offered products celebrating Pride Month. This year, taking advantage of the pro-trans fad, it is selling female bathing suits with a “tuck” feature to accommodate biological men identifying as women—you know, like Lia Thomas.

Ew.

However, such products are legal, and if Target offers them and customers buy them, it is not the business or concern of customers who don’t want to buy them. Yet this year’s Target collection has generated threats of a national boycott as well as, according to Target, actions rsiking the safety of its staff. The company told the Wall Street Journal that people have confronted workers in stores, knocked down Pride merchandise displays and put threatening posts on social media using video recorded from inside stores.

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Ethics Dunce, And That’s Not The Half Of It: ESPN Host Sarah Spain

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Yesterday, Ethics Alarms noted the fact that the Tampa Bay Rays had decided to brand themselves during “Pride Month” as LGTBQ boosters with yet another rainbow themed patch meant to go on player uniforms, and that five players had chosen to duck the pandering. Around the same time I was writing the post, ESPN hostess (I bet she hates being called that rather than “host.” Tough.) Sarah Spain went on a rant in which she called the Rays players who decided not to go along to get along “bigots.”

Nice. Also Stupid. Also unethical.

“[This] is what tends to happen when frivolous class isn’t affected by things. That religious exemption BS is used in sports and otherwise also allows for people to be denied health care, jobs, apartments, children, prescriptions, all sorts of rights. We have to stop tiptoeing around it because we’re trying to protect people who are trying to be bigoted from asking for them to be exempt from it, when the very people that they are bigoted against are suffering the consequences you say trying to be bigoted.”

Wait, this woman’s a host and the best she can do off-script is that gibberish? I could talk better than that after a closed head injury.

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