By DONALD DeMARCO
As a Boy Scout I was proud to march in a parade. I was part, however small, of a civic celebration. The spectacle of drum majorettes twirling their batons, slowly moving and elaborately decorated floats, bands piping John Philip Sousa marches, and the town mayor waving to the crowd from a sleek automobile, were all in good fun. What could possibly be questionable about a parade? Fred Astaire and Judy Garland capitalized on the glamour in the parade in Easter Parade. Parades were not only fun, but joy filled.
The parade, however, has become intensely controversial and is no longer a spectacle that allcan enjoy. As June gives way to July, many are relieved that the Pride Parades are over, at least for another year. Television will have other things to report and traffic will move unimpeded in cities throughout the country.
Much ink has been spilled concerning the pros and cons of the LGBTQ2+ consortium and its annual parade which seems to be growing from year to year. I would like to draw attention, however, to a single item that is a microcosm of the entire movement. As the Pride Parade made its way down a main street in Toronto, a large banner was particularly conspicuous. It displayed but six words, yet they provide an insight that is worth examining: “Opening doors for an inclusive tomorrow.”
This phrase has, without doubt, not only a positive ring to it, but it also resonates with the Christian message. “Opening doors” is an invitation that welcomes good things. It is far more positive than closing doors and being locked in the past. Christianity moves forward to better things and so does virtually every group. Hope is both a natural as well as a supernatural virtue.
And these doors will open to an “inclusive tomorrow.” Christianity is as inclusive as inclusive can be in welcoming all. The colonnade at St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican opens its arms to everyone. So why not open doors to everyone? That would certainly be far better than the discrimination, prejudice, and marginalization of people that we have experience in the past.
The Parade, therefore, has a high moral tone and welcomes everyone to a happier and more accepting future.
Well, that’s the rhetoric. What about the reality? It does not require much thought to realize that the LGBTQ2+ platoon is included. They do not need to lobby for it. They have their own month and a formidable power and influence that is truly astonishing. Their books are readily available in libraries and bookstores. Their banners fly at ballparks, from flag poles at Catholic schools, from business windows, and at various entertainment centers. The rainbow flag is more protected than is the Star and Stripes. People have lost their jobs or have been ostracized for daring to be critical, even in the most temperate way. They are not only already included, they are dominant.
Of course, the six-word banner is a lie. The real issue is whether anyone who accepts the Bible can be included. Scripture is not congenial to homosexual acts. Therefore, it is not eligible for inclusion. Does the banner welcome the Caliban, the Ku Klux Klan, Nazis, and various terrorist groups? What is displayed is rhetoric without reason. It is characteristic of an age that refuses to think beyond the level of impulse. It is only too clear, that what the consortium wants is not inclusion but approval. It will encounter, however, two invincible opponents. One is tradition and the moral law which it contains. The other, and perhaps more formidable, is nature. For nature will make no concessions to either rhetoric or political correctness. It is the immovable ground on which we all stand or fall.
Marion Montgomery, scholar, critic, and award-winning poet and novelist, has written an important book which he titles, The Truth of Things: Liberal Arts and the Recovery of Reality. He speaks of the climate of today’s thought “in which thought itself has increasingly eroded, replaced by the impulse of unexamined desire pretending to be thought.” As a result, Montgomery goes on to say, we are “pushed and pulled along by desire, only to find ourselves suspecting a precipice of some sort ahead.”
The notion of the importance of an “examined life” goes back to Socrates who famously asserted that “the unexamined life is not worth living”. This maxim has been, to cite Marion Montgomery once again, “. . . the traditional justification of the academy in the West ever since, though now eroded almost beyond recovery.” It can be a frightening thing to examine one’s life, to look into one’s self with honesty and courage. Bystanders who cheered the parade would hardly be critical of the misleading rhetoric written on the banner. The problem with those marching in the parade stretches far beyond them to include a culture. The problem is immense and far-reaching.
In the lower left of the banner is printed the logo of Toronto Dominion, one of Canada’s five largest banks and a parade sponsor. “We’re helping to make progress by supporting organizations that provide expanded health and wellness services,” reads its justification. Are the authorities at TD oblivious to the variety of sexually transmitted diseases that sexual deviancy spreads, including the HIV virus that leads to AIDS? Thinking that is limited to the surface is nothing more than impulse. And impulse cannot possibly serve the needs of a community. What we need in order to be truly inclusive are honest and insightful thinking, love between neighbors, moral integrity, and most of all, reality.
We should have a parade for these values.
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