Happy Pride Month, everybody! June is the month when the sale of rainbow merchandise skyrockets and anti-gay right wingers decry the very right of LGBTQ people to exist, let alone celebrate that existence.
Case in point, Scott Lively, a man who literally wrote a book about how Nazis were all gay and that's why they were such vicious killers, is having a very unhappy Pride Month.
But wait a minute, back to the gay Nazi thing. Since Nazis are making a resurgence under the Trump regime, are these Richard Spencer brand Nazis also supposedly gay, too? Or was that only the old Nazis? IT'S ALL SO CONFUSING!
Anyway, Lively, who views LGBTQ people through a horror movie lens (see: Gay Nazi book), thinks that we should remember REAL gay history, which, when retold by him, could easily provide enough material for one of those church haunted houses that are supposed to scare you away from sin but really just make you wish you'd spent your money on drugs instead.
In a June 2 column on World Nut Daily, Lively is very upsets at the U.S. Navy for daring to post a rainbow flag on their Facebook page celebrating ALL who serve.
Lively cites a 1957 publication in which the Navy said homosexuality was bad, which is proof, in his mind, that a Pride post in 2017 shows "how far our moral standards have fallen."
Lively contends that "we reached the height of our civility as a nation" in the 1950s because we apparently properly hated the gays back then. This is a very convenient revision of history. Perhaps anticipating push back, Lively does admit that "improvements in race relations were slow." Uh, you think? Jim Crow laws were enforced until 1965 and it's not like America started over with a clean non-racist slate after that. I know that white people think that Obama brought racism back but the truth is it never really left. So, yeah, I think "height of our civility" is a real stretch.
The rest of Lively's column is a greatest hits compendium of right-wing "facts" about LGBT history. According to Lively, "Behind the facade of ubiquitous pro-LGBT propaganda in the media and academia is a community of deeply troubled people, rife with drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence, self-destructive behaviors, 'hate crime' hoaxes, Machiavellian political manipulations at every level, pathological self-centeredness and seething hatred for anyone who dares oppose the 'gay' agenda."
"Political manipulations at every level," huh? Pretty good for a bunch of drug addicted losers riddled with self-hatred. Especially since Lively also claims that LGBT people are also responsible for the "exploitation and degradation of our military." No wonder the military wants us now. We have no life worth yet also have super human abilities. Although, wait, is Lively talking about "gay Nazis" again? Again, SO CONFUSING.
The fact is, LGBT people have been serving in the military for as long as the military has existed. For the vast majority of that time, LGBT service members were forced to hide and many were booted out regardless of their professionalism, expertise, or training. Lively might think that returning to those times of "civility" is a good idea, but the military is actually stronger when it isn't attacking its own members. I'm proud of the U.S. Navy, even if Lively isn't.
