I occasionally come across quotations that snag my attention like a needle-hook to yarn. I may or may not agree with the writer's perspective, I may find them derivative or vulgar, but they represent something that stirs my curiosity and perspective.
The new moral majority is pro-gay rather than anti-gay. It consists of the political class, the capitalist class, the media class and the celebrity class. Its flag is the Pride flag. Its branding and messaging are inescapable. If you’re a truly virtuous person, you’ll even wear the new moral majority’s political paraphernalia, in the form of a Pride badge, a Pride t-shirt, or Pride socks on the actual TV news (Mr Snow). Doing so is a way of letting everyone know you’re a good person. You’re on the right side of virtue and the right side of history. You are an insider.
But there are many reasons why it might be a good idea to dissent from the orgy of Pride conformism and to refuse to bow and scrape before the rainbow flag. That flag sums up everything that is wrong with our era. Its message is that you should be proud of yourself simply for what you are — for having been ‘born this way’, as Lady Gaga puts it — rather than for what you have achieved.
As a symbol, it’s a celebration of the self, of an accident of birth, of something as mundane as who one sleeps with. It’s an invitation to narcissism and, as such, it further corrodes the social solidarity and sense of community so many of us long for today. Pride, the institution, is anti-social.