A Cause for Celebration?
“A celebration. A protest. A party. A place to take up space. An opportunity to don our finest and shiniest. A chance to recognize how far we have come and reflect on where we need to go from here.” This is how the Vancouver Pride Society, the organizers of the Vancouver pride parade, describe their upcoming signature event.
The purpose of the pride parade is to celebrate homosexuality and transgenderism. In other policy reports and blog posts, ARPA Canada has explained how such views of sexuality and gender contravene God’s good purposes for men and women. Scripture is replete with passages that define marriage as the union between a man and a woman and that outline a proper respect and love for one’s body.
Not only are the core values of the LGBTQ movement contrary to Scripture, but their rhetoric and actions are hypocritical as well.
For instance, the pride parade event advertisement not only describes the event but extends a seemingly inclusive invitation, saying, “Whatever your reason, we invite you and yours to the 2019 Vancouver Pride Parade.”
Unless you and yours represent the University of British Columbia, the Vancouver Police Department, or the Vancouver Public Library – these organizations have been barred from being represented at the pride parade.
UBC and the Vancouver Public Library have both been barred from the parade because they hosted transgender speaker Jenn Smith and feminist speaker Megan Murphy, respectively. Both of these speakers were deemed by the Vancouver Pride Society as being “transphobic.” The Vancouver Police Department has also been banned from marching in uniform, not because Vancouver policemen have done anything specifically to anger the LGBTQ community, but simply because they are policemen. Apparently, members of the LGBTQ community feel uncomfortable with a highly visible police presence (despite the fact that the purpose of policemen is to make people feel safe), and this discomfort is enough to ban the police’s overt participation in the parade.
These marching bans clearly demonstrate a deep hypocrisy by some within the LGBTQ community; they require others to accept them for “who they are” yet they themselves refuse to accept other people for “who they are.” They will not tolerate any public disagreement or debate on their sexuality or gender. Over 60,000 students attend UBC, yet hosting a single controversial speaker disqualifies the entire establishment from being represented in the pride parade. The very fact of wearing their uniform precludes a police officer from marching in the parade.
J. P. Moreland, writing on a different yet related topic, sheds light on why this hypocrisy exists: some within the LGBTQ community (and wider secular community) holds to a “contemporary view of tolerance” which proclaims “it’s wrong to say that there are moral duties that should be imposed on everyone, and we all have a moral duty to be tolerant.” See the inherent contradiction?
A “classical definition of tolerance,” which is much more akin to the Christian notion of tolerance promoted by Moreland, holds that, “even though someone disapproves of another’s important moral beliefs and practices, he or she will not inappropriately interfere with them by, for example, silencing speech and refusing to allow the person to contend for his or her views in public.” This is why, although we oppose the pride parade, we do not support blocking or disturbing the parade; the LGBTQ community has the right to peacefully express their views (though, to be clear, this should not include government funding and certainly does not include the right to violate the criminal law prohibiting public nudity and indecent acts).
Using their contemporary view of tolerance, some voices within the LGBTQ community try to discredit and silence others who question their identity or the morality of their movement. Simply host a controversial speaker and you’ll be blacklisted from the pride parade.
Doesn’t sound like a cause for “a celebration” to me.
