Editor’s Note: From The Back Forty is Liberty Nation’s longest running and most popular weekly column. Capturing the “truth” each week from heartlanders in Flyover states, Liberty Nation gives voice to the hard-working Americans otherwise ignored by the coastal elites.
Well, it’s Pride month. The time to celebrate the advancements in equality by the LGBTQ folks with parades, rainbow flags, and special events in every state in some fashion or another. Subscription video-on-demand services are all onboard, offering documentaries, movies, and television programs that feature the community in a positive light. If subscribers are looking for such a show, Hulu and Netflix, among others, happily organize the content and showcase it on their home pages.
And, of course, Midwesterners and rural folks have discussions on the best ways to recognize their neighbors and friends and avoid all types of rancorous behavior. But a few cranky people aren’t thrilled with Chicago and San Francisco and how they are handling Pride observance and commemorations.
The Wind Bag in the Windy City
There is no love lost for Mayor Lori Lightfoot with the good folk living in Chicago. From poor pandemic protocols to the murder of hundreds of citizens in the streets every year to refusing to be interviewed by pale people of the journalistic variety, Lightfoot has been dubbed several demeaning nicknames by her citizenry. The most rancor is reserved for her lack of ability to curb violence in the streets over the last year, which claimed the lives of more than 100 innocent children.
But Pride Month may be Lightfoot’s redeeming moment. She has dressed up the city in the finest of adornments: LGBTQ flags are snapping in the breeze every few feet, and there are brand-spanking-new polychromatic crosswalks. In between dodging bullets, Windy City urbanites were unimpressed: Sergio Rg was inspired to say, “That would fix crime, drugs, homelessness, and poverty in the neighborhoods.”
Brimming with confidence, Lightfoot presented a Pride flag on the northbound lane and a Trans flag on the southbound lane, declaring:
“I can’t even begin to articulate to you the moment and the feeling of pride and humbleness that I feel in my heart to be able to stand here on this day, in front of this building and to say, ‘We belong, we are family, and we will never, ever take a back seat to anyone.’”
Anelk Rigka had a different idea on the Pride side, saying, “Is that red for blood?” Alan Robbins asked, “Is that what she’s doing instead of cleaning up the city? I’m all for Pride recognition but maybe not the biggest priority right now?”
And then, San Francisco replied with the proverbial “hold my beer.”
A Badge of Inclusion
In a bold move, a Major League Baseball team has added the rainbow flag to their uniforms and specific apparel for sale for the duration of Pride Month. The San Francisco Giants released this statement:
“The 11 colors of the new Pride logo are emblematic of the Progress Pride Flag and signify inclusion and progression with the six pride colors. Red (life); orange (healing); yellow (sunlight); green (nature); blue (serenity); purple (spirit); and black and brown to recognize LGBTQ+ people of color and light blue, pink, and white to recognize people who are transgender.”
[bookpromo align=”left”] As woke folk go, you have to give credit to the team for going all-in blazing this particular trail. The Giants have the league’s first ambassador for inclusion on staff to represent the team at LGBTQ events. The palm trees in Willie Mays plaza will be wrapped in the colors of the flag. And the scoreboard in the ballpark will also illuminate scores and stats in the same 11 colors.
Most folks in California were livid – but heartlanders found some humor amidst the calls for Biblical plagues to rain down on unsuspecting MLB players.
Lea Ogle in Sharps Chapel, TN, was a tad gun-shy of the uniform adaptation, vowing, “I’m not going to look because I have an image in my mind of those onesies that the 3 stooges wore at the beach.”
But in Other News, If You Can Find It
Meanwhile, in Oklahoma, a section of a highway in the Panhandle has been renamed President Donald J. Trump Highway – Just to balance the news this week.
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Read more from Sarah Cowgill.
