Gay pride month had just begun when the Colorado Republican Party sent out an anti-gay pride e-mail last Monday featuring:
- A guy with strange eyes who kind of looks like Jesus
- The slogan “God hates flags,” a tweak on one church’s derogatory “God hates fags” campaign
- A video of a sermon by controversial pastor Mark Driscoll, who calls gays “demonic.”
“The month of June has arrived and, once again, the godless groomers in our society want to attack what is decent, holy and righteous so they can ultimately harm our children,” said the email, which referred to LGBTQ people as “creeps,” “degenerates,” “godless,” “groomers,” “predators,” “radicals,” and “reprobates.”
Critics quickly called out the email, including GOP officials who attacked it as “hateful,” “un-Christian and wrong,” as well as politically suicidal in a state that has grown ever bluer since followers of Donald Trump have taken over leadership of Republican parties in states across the nation.
One longtime Republican and Fox News contributor said the anti-gay emails sounded like they came from “a fundamentalist church” and called the state party “The Westboro Baptist Republican Party of Colorado.”
The Colorado GOP struck back with another crude email on Tuesday that read “Burn all the #pride flags this June” and showed a pixelated gay pride flag going up in flames.
“We used a clip of a Christian sermon to speak against Pride Month, and the backlash we see is coming from radical Democrats, the media and pundits, and weak Republicans who want to stick their head in the sand,” said Colorado GOP Chairman Dave Williams, who is running for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
In a May email, Williams told parents to remove their children from the state’s public schools because Democrats want “to turn more kids trans.”
Pushing back against gay rights and gay pride is part of a nationwide campaign by conservative Christian “pro-family” political groups that follow the playbook and rhetoric Florida anti-gay crusader Anita Bryant first used in 1977.
Now in 2024, some of these groups are celebrating their accomplishments. The Family Research Council, a D.C.-based political nonprofit founded by James Dobson of Focus on the Family 41 years ago, sounded celebratory in an article titled “A Christian Response to Pride Month.” It said: “For Americans who used to dread June and its suffocating rainbow excess, this year feels different. A week into the obligatory LGBT pandering, and the storyline hasn’t been Pride — but Pride pushback.”
But the Family Research Council’s celebration was short-lived: “Despite the huge success Americans have had driving home their outrage at LGBT extremism, our cities will still be full of flags, parades, drag shows and every other kind of perversion.”
The American Family Association used the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion of France to claim that “the Pentagon under President Joe Biden has a different mission this June: promotion of LGBTQ plus pride month.”
The American Family Association article quoted a Family Research Council leader who “has witnessed firsthand the moral depravity that has been pushed by leftists in the U.S. military.” It said: “Here we are, focused on things that have nothing to do with war-fighting and everything to do with abomination. That’s where we are today with this administration. These people are beyond the pale. They need to be replaced — and the sooner the better.”
The reconstituted Promise Keepers used Pride Month to launch its “Godly Masculinity Proclamation.”
“The proclamation seeks to establish where leaders and pastors nationwide fall in their position on masculinity, femininity, gender roles and most specifically, Godly masculinity and the role of men in our culture,” said an announcement.
Ken Harrison
“‘No more playing both sides to ensure the pews remain full,” said Promise Keepers Chairman Ken Harrison, who also is CEO of WaterStone, a financial firm that serves “givers at the intersection of faith and finance.”
Harrison says America’s current culture has been captured by the lies of Satan, confusing those roles and responsibilities. This confusion, he says, has led to moral decline, violence, disrespect of parents and elders and sexual perversion.
Focus on the Family published an article echoing the claim that LGBTQ people have been captured by Satan. “God loves sinners,” said the article, but: “God has a deep hatred for sin and lies — not because he hates people or groups of people, but because he knows sin is disfiguring and destructive. It mars and damages and is deeply painful. Lies and blindness from the enemy keep people locked in darkness, brokenness and despair.”
Focus also complained that Walmart is celebrating Pride Month, even as Target backed away such promotions this year after being hammered by “pro-family” groups last year:
As Target scaled back its Pride Month merchandise due to lagging sales, Walmart has decided it might be good business to ramp up their Pride propaganda. Numerous news outlets have noted the shift from this major corporation that fashions itself a champion of pro-family values.
Is there not one major mainstream corporation or organization that refuses to be bullied by these activists? Can you think of one?
Its drives one to ask, what so-called “marginalized people” have that much power and influence to infiltrate every aspect of the market square and society?
Dave Williams (right) with Donald Trump in May. Trump has endorsed Williams in his race for the U.S. Senate from Colorado. (Photo via X)
Colorado GOP Chairman Dave Williams is running to be the next member of U.S. House as Doug Lamborn said he will retire after nine terms and no longer represent the district that includes Colorado Springs.
Some have called the expensive contest over the seat “a battle for the soul of the GOP.” Donald Trump has endorsed Williams, while House Speaker Mike Johnson has endorsed competitor Jeff Crank.
Williams’ anti-gay emails come as Colorado Springs prepares for its Sunday celebration of Pikes Peak Pride, which attracted 15,000 to 25,000 people last year.
Gay rights have been under fire in Colorado Springs since Focus on the Family relocated here from California in 1991 and immediately promoted culture war on homosexuality by promoting Amendment 2, a 1922 anti-gay-rights measure that narrowly won at the ballot box after an ugly campaign but was later overturned by the Supreme Court.
Focus on the Family’s support for Amendment 2 galvanized the local gay community, which has hosted local gay pride celebrations in the three decades since.
Focus also partners with health and wealth preacher Andrew Wommack in nearby Woodland Park, Colo. Wommack complained about sympathy shown to gay people in the wake of the 2022 killing spree at local Club Q, which left five dead and 25 injured. The killer faces sentencing June 18.
After the killing spree, Wommack said: “Nobody likes to see violence like that, and I’m not endorsing it, but our Fox station that I was watching, they just went overboard talking about how we need to be in one with these people. … I think this is one of the major threats of the devil.”
A recent survey found 69% of religious Americans support nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people, something pro-family groups oppose.
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