Tag Archive for: Pride Pushback

Walmart’s Retreat on DEI This Thanksgiving Is Just Gravy

Turkeys aren’t the only things on the chopping block this week — so is woke policy. Americans, who are already celebrating a return to sanity after the elections, have to be equally ecstatic that after 19 months, conservatives are savoring another massive corporate surrender. In what Robby Starbuck calls “the biggest win yet,” the country’s number one employer, Walmart, is abandoning DEI in what may be the smartest holiday marketing decision so far.

For shoppers looking for an alternative to Target’s racks of chest-binding lunacy, it’s been disappointing to see how their largest competitor has become just as compromised on everything from Pride merch to abortion travel coverage. Now, in a shocking sea change, the brand is ditching its radical activism for market-friendly neutrality — just in time for the Christmas shopping season.

A jubilant Starbuck, who’d been in conversations with Walmart executives behind the scenes, said in a video announcing the change that he didn’t even know where to start, because, in his mind, “This is different than everything else we’ve done.” And maybe the most impactful. For weeks, the consumer activist was teasing the fact that he’d been investigating an enormous company. “Now I can reveal it was Walmart. But,” he emphasized, “something incredible happened.”

When headquarters realized Starbuck was looking under the retailer’s hood, they reached out to him. “This was critical and honestly turned out pretty fantastic for everybody involved in my opinion,” he explained. “We were able to have frank conversations with Walmart. And as I’ve said for a long time, I don’t ask companies to take on my political views. I am simply advocating for corporate neutrality. … [T]his is the future,” Starbuck insisted of the grassroots movement. And the iconic blue-and-yellow brand must agree, because “after various productive conversations, I am very proud to report to you guys that Walmart has decided on making some changes.”

The biggest, conservatives would agree, is that the company will no longer be participating in the Human Rights Campaign’s outrageous Corporate Equality Index, further frustrating the largest driver of the LGBT agenda in American brands. “I have to give their executives major credit,” Starbuck underscored, “because this will send shockwaves throughout corporate America.” Other changes the company pledged to make:

  • “Monitor the Walmart marketplace to identify and remove inappropriate sexual and / or transgender products marketed to children.
  • Review all funding of Pride, and other events, to avoid funding inappropriate sexualized content targeting kids.
  • Discontinue the Racial Equity Center which was established in 2020 as a special five-year initiative.
  • Evaluate supplier diversity programs and ensure they do not provide preferential treatment and benefits to suppliers based on diversity. We don’t have quotas and won’t going forward. Financing eligibility will no longer be predicated on providing certain demographic data.
  • End the use of ‘Latinx’ in official communications.
  • Cancel racial equity training through the Racial Equity Institute.
  • Stop the use of DEI as a term while ensuring a respectful and supportive environment.”

Walmart joins a long list of companies who are publicly rejecting the agenda that’s tanked the stocks and profits of unrepentant brands like Bud Light, Nike, and Disney. Sam Walton’s stores now join a consumer activist trophy wall that includes Tractor Supply, John Deere, Harley Davidson, Polaris, Indian Motorcycle, Lowe’s, Ford, Coors, Black & Decker, Jack Daniels, DeWalt tools, Craftsman, Caterpillar, Boeing, and Toyota. Together, these companies represent an eye-popping $2 trillion dollars in market value.

Asked to explain the abrupt reversal, Walmart told Fox Business, ”[We are] willing to change alongside our associates and customers who represent all of America.” Striking a remarkably contrite tone, they added, “We’ve been on a journey and know we aren’t perfect, but every decision comes from a place of wanting to foster a sense of belonging, to open doors to opportunities for all our associates, customers and suppliers and to be a Walmart for everyone.”

Stephen Soukup, author of “The Dictatorship of Woke Capital” and vice president at The Political Forum, believes “what’s happening with Walmart is a big deal. And not just because it is the largest retailer in the world,” he told The Washington Stand. “I think Walmart’s decision confirms that American business stands poised on the precipice of a ‘preference cascade.’”

He’s referring to a concept that was invented by economics about 40 years ago to explain “how totalitarian regimes go from seemingly stable and in control to toppled and wiped out in a matter of days or weeks. In brief, everyone lies about their preferences in public for fear of being singled out for retribution by the regime or their peers. In time, however, the lies give way to reality. A spark of some sort alerts individuals to the fact that they are not alone, that everyone shares their hatred of the regime but has also been hiding it,” he explained.

And once that “signals to the masses that the false social support is teetering — once one person, then two people, then three people express publicly what they have long felt privately — the entire social structure collapses upon itself. One leads to two, which leads to three, which leads to a ‘cascade’ of thousands upon thousands.” In this instance, “The DEI regime — largely started and enforced by groups like the Human Rights Campaign — has been stifling for businesses, which nevertheless played along for fear of being singled out. … And so, a return to standard traditional business practices is something that’s really going to benefit shareholders,” Soukup told guest host Joseph Backholm on Tuesday’s “Washington Watch.”

Remember, Starbuck emphasized, “This won’t just have a massive effect for their employees who will have a neutral workplace without feeling that divisive issues are being injected but it will also extend to their many suppliers.”

This will all come as a relief to former Walmart CEO Bill Simon, who five years ago, lamented the liberal changes the company had made since he departed a decade ago. “Our view was always, ‘Let’s just run a business,’” he told Family Research Council President Tony Perkins in 2019. “We’ll sell to anybody. We’ll try to stay out of the public eye on issues that can be confrontational.” Fast-forward to the last five years, when everything — including the marketplace — is polarized. It’s astonishing, he said on “Washington Watch,” to see the progression of corporations.

Even then, Simon thought it was only a matter of time before the next shoe would drop. “I think there’s going to have to be some kind of reckoning because businesses,” he predicted, “particularly one that trades in public markets on the stock exchange, has to be available to everybody and can’t exclude one political ideology just because [of] the ideology of the people who are currently running that business.”

In this instance, the mere threat of consumer backlash was enough to force Walmart to wave the white flag. And it’s because, as Starbuck celebrated, “We are a force to be reckoned with. … [T]he paradigm has changed. We are powerful and growing every single day.” And, he added, “We will not stop until we have eliminated wokeness in corporate America.

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLE: House Advances Dismantle DEI Act to Eliminate a ‘Very Dangerous Ideology’

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

John Deere Listens to De-tractors, Bails on DEI and Pride Parades

Americans are having a literal field day calling woke companies on the carpet this summer. Their latest conquest — a corporation that arguably never should have been in this mess — is agricultural icon John Deere. Three weeks after their rural relatives at Tractor Supply Co. did a complete U-turn, disavowing their LGBT activism in a public apology, the famous green and yellow logo has not only felt the heat, it’s seen the light.

You can almost smell the fear in executive board rooms now that conservatives have started pulling back the curtain on the advocacy that a surprising number of heartland CEOs are quietly engaging in. Robby Starbuck, who almost singlehandedly brought Tractor Supply to heel, started digging into the tractor manufacturer’s corporate policies and was stunned to find a deep root of DEI, leftist campaign donations, and climate and trans activism.

According to Starbuck, employees were blunt about the business’s priorities under CEO John May. “I’ve never worked at a company that values DEI more than John Deere,” one admitted. Their shared experiences spanned from “listening to the ‘Experience of the LGBTQ+ community across generations” to “[P]ride photoshoots at the office.” One of the most disturbing measures of the business’s abandonment of its consumer base was the 95% it scored on the Human Rights Campaign’s 2024 pro-trans Equality Index. As if that weren’t enough, the brand went so far as to declare in a recent annual report that “DEI is the only global behavioral performance metric upon which all salaried employees are evaluated.”

No more. Three weeks after Starbuck went public with his findings, May’s failure to read the room has come home to roost. The CEO, who’s been at the helm since 2019 and presided over the brand’s sudden downturn, has at least partially come to his senses. In an X post Wednesday, John Deere wrote, “Our customers’ trust and confidence in us are of the utmost importance to everyone at John Deere. We fully intend to earn it every day and in every way we can.”

Based on “ongoing conversations,” the business explains, “we have committed to the following:

  • “We will no longer participate in or support external social or cultural awareness parades, festivals, or events.
  • Business Resource Groups will exclusively be focused on professional development, networking, mentoring, and supporting talent recruitment efforts.
  • Auditing all company-mandated training materials and policies to ensure the absence of socially motivated messages, while being in compliance with federal, state, and local laws.
  • Reaffirming within the business that the existence of diversity quotas and pronoun identification have never been and are not company policy.”
  • We fundamentally believe that a diverse workforce enables us to best meet our customers’ needs and because of that we will continue to track and advance the diversity of our organization.”

Starbuck celebrated the victory but argued the company could go further. “Customers want to hear that DEI policies are entirely gone.” That said, he went on, even this “shows that we’re a powerful force to be reckoned with. … This is another massive win.” The pushback is working, he reiterated. “You just need to report the truth to people about what’s happening in corporate America. We have over 1,000 different whistleblowers coming from many different companies. Woke corporate executives all fear that their company is next to be exposed.”

He’s right about that. Ever since shoppers’ shellacking of Target and Bud Light, executives have had a collective panic attack about their radical extra curriculars. As recently as this week, Jim Fielding, a former CEO of Claire’s and a former president of Disney stores, admitted to The Wall Street Journal, “I’m very nervous. Who’s next?”

Adding to the Left’s headaches, this year’s Pride Month was a disaster for the Left, who watched companies flee the tradition in droves — desperate to put some distance between themselves and their LGBT alliances. Then came Tractor Supply’s sweeping mea culpa, the most thorough repudiation of internal wokeness the country has ever seen. “Wall Street is on notice,” Starbuck insisted. “Corporate America is afraid of YOU. Every woke company is wondering if they’re next.”

The full power of the American consumer is on display — and even the media isn’t disputing it. “Your favorite brand no longer cares about being woke,” Vox declared. In fact, this grassroots revolution is such a formidable force, so persistently potent, that Starbuck believes some companies “will drop their programs without us ever doing a story.”

For conservatives who’ve been in these trenches for years, like Strive’s Justin Danhof, this is an especially gratifying moment. The brainchild of presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, Strive is the anti-ESG answer to the woke asset management of firms like BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street. “When people invest their money in a company, they should be able to have confidence that the people who run it are making decisions that are what’s best for the value of the company,” Danhof told The Washington Stand. “That’s basic common sense. And to the extent that Strive is helping to convince executives to care about shareholders rather than stakeholders, then I think we’re making progress.”

Here’s hoping. Until then, everyone should heed Robby’s advice: “You really do NOT want to make customers angry. [It’s] just a terrible idea.”

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLE: The Fairness Fraud: This is behind the DEI, CRT, Woke charades

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Tractor Supply Puts Pride Out to Pasture, Handing Americans Their Biggest Win Yet

Most Americans couldn’t dream up a better way to cap off the Left’s 2024 Pride fail than another big-name company running for the exits. While major league sports and other businesses quietly dumped the June tradition, Tractor Supply Co. opted for a full-scale reversal, complete with a public apology for their activism. In a statement that read like a death knell for the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the rural retailer joined the bumper crop of brands on the sidelines — putting another exclamation point on this year’s epic pushback.

Fresh off a stint at another hotbed of wokeness, Macy’s, CEO Hal Lawton, who’s only been at the helm since 2020, took the Tennessee-based company in a radical new direction, embracing everything from transgenderism to DEI — decisions that earned him a perfect score on HRC’s 2022 Equality Index (and a 95% last year), honors on Bloomberg’s Gender Equality Index for 2022 and 2023 and Newsweek’s Greatest Workplaces for Diversity in 2023. And while the adulation of the Left might have been music to Lawton’s ears, it became a battle cry for his heartland consumers.

Journalist and film director Robby Starbuck fanned those flames, exposing Tractor Supply’s not-so-secret identity as a card-carrying member of the radical Left. For the better part of this summer, he reported on the details of Lawton’s partnerships, sparking grassroots outrage so intense that the company announced a complete course-correction.

In a blockbuster statement Thursday, Tractor Supply didn’t skirt the issue, admitting bluntly, “We work hard to live up to our Mission and Values every day and represent the values of the communities and customers we serve. We have heard from customers that we have disappointed them. We have taken this feedback to heart. Going forward,” they vow, “we will ensure our activities and giving tie directly to our business.”

They list five monumental concessions, including promises to:

  1. “No longer submit data to the Human Rights Campaign
  2. Refocus our Team Member Engagement Groups on mentoring, networking and supporting the business
  3. Further focus on rural America priorities including ag education, animal welfare, veteran causes and being a good neighbor and stop sponsoring nonbusiness activities like pride festivals and voting campaigns
  4. Eliminate DEI roles and retire our current DEI goals while still ensuring a respectful environment [and]
  5. Withdraw our carbon emission goals and focus on our land and water conservation efforts.”

“We will continue to listen to our customers and Team Members. Your trust and confidence in us are of the utmost importance, and we don’t take that lightly. As we look forward to celebrating our nation’s independence, we also celebrate our more than 50,000 team members across 2,250 stores. Rural communities are the backbone of our nation and what make America great. We are honored to be a part of them. We are always here and ready to serve you and your family with our legendary service for the life you love. See you in the stores.”

The sound you hear is millions of conservatives’ jaws dropping. Had Tractor Supply agreed to even one of these policy changes, it would have been headline news. But to virtually wipe the slate clean of every vestige of LGBT activism, climate change, and then flat-out ditch DEI is a political transformation the likes of which Americans have never seen. Not only that but the company’s contrition felt sincere — and more importantly, backed by concrete steps to prove it.

“This is a massive victory for sanity and the single biggest boycott win of our lifetime,” Starbuck tweeted. To HRC, who denounced the move in a desperate attempt to hang on to their corporate leverage, he warned, “This is the beginning, not the end. … You call me an extremist but you know what I find extreme? Expecting every company on earth to force your political + social beliefs on the entire planet. That seems sort of extreme. All my side is asking for is sanity. Let stores just be stores again. No politics, no far left social values push, just good products & service. No one is asking for discrimination, just normalcy and to not have your politics shoved down their throat.”

At this rate, the people who’ll be most relieved when Pride Month is over are the organizers.

Perhaps most telling, Tractor Supply wasn’t afraid to list its disassociation from HRC first — a level of open defiance that would have been unthinkable five years ago. And yet, like so many businesses, Lawton has realized the only force to truly fear is consumers.

As All-American swimmer and women’s advocate Riley Gaines pointed out, Lawton had plenty of incentive to roll back his extremism. “It only took @TractorSupply losing $2 billion before they decided to stick to selling farm equipment rather than engaging in activism. I believe this is the strongest ‘apology’ statement we’ve seen from a corporation so far. Props to them for listening & responding to their base.”

Donald Trump Jr. applauded Tractor Supply’s disavowal of the Left, writing, “This is great. … It takes courage to admit when you’ve gone [astray] & it’s time more companies acknowledge they are there to serve their actual customers & those communities & not the woke causes of people who would never set foot in your stores. Well Done!”

For conservatives who’ve been fighting wokeism before it was a word, this is a powerful moment — even a historic one. Stephen Soukup, author of “The Dictatorship of Woke Capital,” can’t believe what he’s seeing. “Political neutrality is extremely difficult to achieve. … The reason,” he explains, “… is because of the politicization of basically everything in society, right? Health care is now political. Investments are political. Everything has been overtly made into a political issue. … [And] when everything is political, it pits us against each other. … And that’s something that we have to try and prevent against.”

Ever since the Bud Light and Target fiascos last year, Soukup told The Washington Stand, “Corporations have become aware that there is a distinction between ‘stakeholders’ and stakeholders. As the scare quotes imply, the first is a group of people who have no real skin in the game and are using the company solely to make a political point. The second, by contrast, are people who have a genuine interest in the company and its well-being — customers, employees, shareholders, etc. Catering to the former at the expense of the latter has proven to be a disastrous business strategy and, as a result, is rightly being abandoned by corporate leaders who understand what their fiduciary duties are.”

After this explosion of pushback, he feels the ground shifting. “… I’m so much more optimistic now than I was three or four years ago about how effective we can be in halting this ideological, political takeover of business and capital markets,” Soukup insisted.

But on the ideological battlefield, revolutions don’t happen all at once, Family Research Council’s Joseph Backholm pointed out. “You have to move one step at a time. You conquer a bridge, a hill, then a town. You keep piling up small victories, until eventually you realize a significant amount of territory has been conquered.”

Well, a significant amount of territory has been conquered here, and Americans who took a stand by taking their money elsewhere deserve all the credit in the world. The Goliaths are falling in a battle no conservative imagined winning. So pick up your slings, and let’s go. There are giants to slay.

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Pride Month Goes Out with a Whimper

It’s been a long time since Americans could sit back and actually enjoy the month of June. It was always an insufferable four weeks, breathing in the rainbow-saturated air that fell heaviest across our favorite sports, stores, shows, and social media. But the most remarkable thing about this year’s Pride Month may be just how unremarkable it was. Sure, there were still parades, over-the-top political pronouncements, and colorful flags billowing from too many government buildings, but the characteristic dread and fatigue from Pride is gone — replaced by a quiet confidence that maybe, just maybe, we’ve been heard.

For the conservatives in the movement fighting this battle the longest, 2024 didn’t just feel different. It was different. Heading into these final days of June, the biggest story across the mainstream media isn’t who’s celebrating Pride, but where did it go? The Associated PressNBC NewsVox, and others have talked to countless experts, who all have the same thing to say: Executives are too worried about rocking the consumer boat.

“They’ve been rattled,” Drexel University Marketing Professor Daniel Korschun insists of CEOs and other industry heads. “There’s been a definite scaling back in both big and small ways,” Joanna Schwartz, another professor at Georgia College & State University, agreed. “I had expected some brand caution, but this year seems [to be] a near full-scale retreat.”

For people whose livelihoods are actually tied to the LGBT activism that June represents, “bad” doesn’t begin to describe the year they’re having. For Tim Bennett, co-founder of a firm called Tribury that specializes in reaching gay- and trans-identifying audiences, business has been a bust. A lot fewer clients are “reaching out for Pride Month collaborations,” Bennett admitted to Vox. “In speaking with my peers,” he said, “most of us are experiencing the same pullback or wait-and-see approach.” Brand sponsorships are especially low.

Rob Smith, who sells gender-neutral clothing, told the AP that he’s seen a 25% drop in the number of stores carrying his line just over the last several months. That jives with what Alysse Dalessandro has experienced as an LGBTQ content creator. She went from 35 clients who hired her as a model for their Pride Month campaigns in 2022 to nine in 2023 — and just five this year. Even The Trevor Project, an extreme trans-affirming youth nonprofit, conceded to Marketing Brew that it’s seen “a decline in corporate giving in the last couple of years.”

Maybe this is just a “natural progression,” some have tried to spin it. If “transgender and queer people are regarded as part of the norm, there’s no point in making a big statement,” Barbara Kahn, of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, argued.

But in a country where corporate America is routinely blackmailed by LGBT pressure groups, any hint of moderating that message would be seen as betrayal. Stephen Soukup, an expert in woke capital, who’s tracked the progression of corporate activism for decades, pointed out that for the last 15 years, businesses have tried “very hard to please one specific [activist] group, the Human Rights Campaign, which is an LGBTQ interest group.” And every year, [HRC] puts out its Corporate Equality Index — and every year, corporations are expected to do different types of things … in order to receive a 100% rating.”

Lately, that’s included everything from offering health care coverage for gender reassignment surgery to giving a certain amount of dollars and time to LGBT advocacy. If HRC doesn’t like the level of support they receive from a business, then, as “Outstanding” podcast host Joseph Backholm pointed out, they’re “going to try to destroy your reputation and make it hard for you to do business. So the companies feel an obligation.”

Frankly, Joseph argued, “I see this as a kind of extortion, where unless you do the things the [activists] want you to do, they are going to affirmatively try to harm you. Because in the marketplace, of course, your reputation is a big part of what your brand is.” He compared it to a gangster showing up at a store, “tapping their nightstick on their palms saying, ‘You know, it’s a great business you have here. It’d be terrible if something happened to it.’”

The difference now is, American consumers have managed to collectively hurt brands’ bottom lines more than HRC’s ostracization ever could. After Dylan Mulvaney’s beer cans and Target’s “tuck-friendly” swimwear, the backlash was so explosive and so sustained that companies had no choice but to recalibrate. These were billion-dollar mistakes that sent plenty of boardrooms into desperate PR tailspins — and everyone else on a year-long soul search.

This whole grassroots sea change that’s taken hold in sports, business, and other industries has been an astounding thing for longtime conservatives to witness, especially those like Soukup, who’ve been fighting the corporate beast virtually alone for the better part of two decades. “There’s definitely been a retreat,” he agreed. “When I sat down to write the book ‘The Dictatorship of Woke Capitol’ four years ago this summer,” he admits, “I was pretty pessimistic. I didn’t think that there was a whole lot we could do to push back against ESG, to push back against the broader stakeholder movement, to push back against all of this politicization of American corporations. … Even after the book came out, the following spring, I did interview after interview [and] I was asked, ‘What do you think is going to happen?’ I was still pretty dour. I [was] still pretty pessimistic about what our prospects were to get … capital markets back to neutral.”

Now, he looks around at this nationwide movement to roll back LGBT activism and can hardly believe it. “Over the past three years, there’s been really an explosion in the pushback. And there are a lot of people who’ve been involved in this, a lot of people who deserve a lot of credit for this.”

It was almost like a great awakening for everyday Americans, who finally got fed up and realized the amount of power they wield. “We’ve seen a lot of people say, ‘You know what? This is not right. This is not the way that American capitalism is supposed to function. This is not the way American democracy is supposed to function. And it’s important for us to get this right, because if we don’t, then we lose everything.’ … I’m so much more optimistic now than I was three or four years ago about how effective we can be in halting this ideological, political takeover of business and capital markets.”

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

UGG Chooses Pride, Customers Choose to Boycott

“My hope,” said comedian and commentator Alok Vaid-Menon, “is that Pride can be experienced by everyone, everywhere, every day.” Vaid-Menon, more commonly referred to as Alok, is the transgender-identifying man UGG, the widely known boot company which chose to partner with for their URSeen Pride line. In an Instagram post, he said he was “thrilled” to partner with UGG and can be seen twirling around in a pink dress in his video ad for the campaign. “I really wanted my UGG Pride collaboration to be an unapologetic embrace of vibrancy and color.”

The campaign has been met with the call for boycotts, which some have described as “deja vu” in reference to the 2023 boycotts Bud Light experienced when they hired trans-identifying influencer Dylan Mulvaney to represent the brand. According to CNN, the beer giant saw a $1.4 billion drop in sales on account of the backlash. Following the trend, UGG now faces the response of frustrated consumers.

Alok’s role in the UGG Pride line alone is upsetting Americans. As the conservative X account Libs of TikTok shared, “Alok is a radical trans activist who said ‘little girls are k*nky’ and suggests it’s their fault if a male uses the bathroom with them.” But in addition to the disfavor over a biological male parading around as a woman, many have pointed out how UGG’s rainbow line has geared their ideological merchandise toward children.

The URSeen Collection involves various rainbow themed clothing and accessories. Notably, the company included child sized slip-ons and merchandise in this line. Breitbart reported that much of the criticism is centered on the fact that UGG is “exposing children to the transgender and gay agenda” through these products. For many, the irritation seems to stem from consumers who feel that brands are not heeding to the desires of their audience. But as Family Research Council’s Senior Fellow for Education Studies Meg Kilgannon pointed out, this behavior isn’t ultimately surprising.

She commented to The Washington Stand, “UGG tells you on their website they care ‘deeply about doing business the right way,’” which apparently takes shape in promoting someone like Alok, “a male who checks his oppression boxes by being queer from Texas.” Considering the ideological push, Kilgannon asked, “Do the women who wear these boots care about any of this?” Or rather, she added, “Do they just like the boots because they are easy to put on and ugly enough to match any outfit? Are they interested in whether or not UGG is ‘driving positive change in the world’”?

Kilgannon continued, “It’s worth noting that corporations that make politics part of the business model may not be great investments as the public grows increasingly tired of the lectures and posturing.”

This concept is something other brands seem to be catching on to. For instance, this year’s Pride Month has witnessed a significant decrease in the amount of professional sport’s teams repping the rainbow gear and showing their support for the LGBT agenda. Considering this, Kilgannon added that this “toned-down Pride Month” we’re seeing is likely “a function of election year politicking.”

She continued, “Political campaign consultants and corporate executives know that topless cavorting on the White House lawn is bad for business, no matter what business you are in.” Ultimately, Kilgannon concluded, “We will all be better off when globalization isn’t the driving factor in fashion.”

AUTHOR

Sarah Holliday

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLE‘Pride Is Not the Answer, Love Is’: Join ‘See You at the Library’ August 24

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

‘We’re Coming for Your Children’: LGBTQ Public School Agenda Should Concern Parents

Can you imagine not being able to opt your kindergartener out of wholly inappropriate LGBTQ propaganda at school? This is a reality in Maryland’s largest school district where the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit decided parents have no say in whether their K-5-aged children must sit through classes and read books addressing LGBTQ sexuality and gender.

Public schools are often the breeding ground for this radical ideology to be forced on minors. Whether it be boys in girls’ sports, “drag queen story hour” in the library, or forcing sexual themes on minors in the classroom, a war is being waged on our children in the name of LGBTQ activism that won’t stop until every parent, child, and educator surrenders to its demands.

Annually in June, Pride Month brings a heightened onslaught of the LGBTQ agenda in the public square and reminds us of the No. 1 target of this perverse ideology: children.

Coming for Our Children?

Last June, LGBTQ activists chanted, “We’re here! We’re queer! We’re coming for your children!” in New York City’s annual drag march. And we’ll never forget when in 2021, the San Francisco Gay Men’s Choir sang “We’re Coming for Your Children,” with the chilling lyrics: “You think that we’ll corrupt your kids if our agenda goes unchecked. Funny, just this once, you’re correct. We’ll convert your children.”

Though they claim these threats to come after our children are actually “tongue in cheek,” it is evident that impressionable, vulnerable children are the primary victims of radical LGBTQ ideology.

Look no further than the state of public schools, where children are paying the price of this gruesome social experiment that affirms lies to pander to the LGBTQ lobby.

The National Education Association, for example, helped draft and encouraged “sexual education standards” for teachers to discuss inappropriate topics like sexual orientation with children despite parental concerns.

In recent years, it’s been revealed that some school libraries offer sexually-charged and sometimes pornographic books on their shelves. And some schools have even socially “transitioned” students without their parents’ knowledge or consent. In Maryland’s largest public school district, internal data from 2022 showed a 582% increase in just two years in students who identify as “gender nonconforming.”

We are witnessing the carnage this pervasive ideology has had in radicalizing school policies to the detriment of students’ physical well-being. In 2021, for instance, we were struck by the news that a ninth-grade girl in Loudoun County, Virginia was sexually assaulted after a boy dressed in a skirt was allowed to enter the girls’ bathroom, which sparked national outrage.

With the Biden administration’s redefinition of “sex” in Title IX, which will be enacted in August unless the courts intervene, I fear these stories will become even more common as schools that receive federal funds will be subjected to “affirming” a student who identifies as the opposite gender. This opens the door to a plethora of safety, privacy, and ethical concerns and would allow boys in girls’ bathrooms, locker rooms, and sports.

When we were kids, our parents didn’t have to worry about radical indoctrination and dangerous policies in public schools. Sadly, that is no longer the case as public schools have attempted to co-opt the role of the parent and sabotage the foundation upon which a child’s worldview is established, attacking truth as basic as the definition of male and female.

On top of this, government-run schools are failing to provide a quality education, as evidenced by adult literacy rates and declining test scores, especially since COVID.

A Christian Solution

If anything, the COVID-19 pandemic and school closures revealed the cancer that has seeped into the classroom as parents witnessed the ideologies certain teacher “activists” were promulgating on their students. This is one of the reasons parents pulled their children out of public school in droves as public education numbers continue to fall.

With a new school year quickly approaching, I implore parents to pray about where their children are receiving instruction five days a week and become serious about the responsibility to “train up a child in the way he should go” (Proverbs 22:6), understanding what’s at stake in this post-Christian world.

The average child’s worldview is in place by age 13, based on research from George Barna. Who do you trust to help shape your child’s worldview in some of the most crucial years of development?

Christian parents should consider the importance of a private Christian or homeschool education with godly educators who acknowledge truth and believe parents are the primary stakeholders in their child’s education.

Parents need to understand that select alternatives to public school provide a quality education from a faith-based perspective and Christian worldview that won’t compromise on values.

Your child is being discipled one way or another; ensure they’re being discipled in Christ and not in the world. This can change the course of a generation and the trajectory of children’s lives and spiritual growth.

As Voddie Baucham said, “We cannot continue to send our children to Caesar for their education and be surprised when they come home as Romans.”

AUTHOR

Mat Staver

Mat Staver is founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, chairman of Liberty Counsel Action, an educator, and a former founding dean of a leading Christian law school.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Expert: Military’s Pride Posts ‘Prioritize the Trivial to the Detriment of the Significant’

In honor of Pride Month, the U.S. Navy SEALs and Naval Special Warfare Command’s Facebook page shared a post that read, with the words spread out across a rainbow background, “NSW. Dignity. Service. Respect. Equality. Pride.” The Navy SEALs, which are often regarded as one of the U.S. military’s leading and most respected fighting forces, was not able to walk away from the post free of backlash. It “brought a tsunami of criticism and ridicule,” LifeSite News reported. They added, “The message was hugely ratioed, eliciting 7,000 mostly negative comments to just 1,500 ‘likes.’”

One comment, which received significant attention, said, “This is a slap in the face of every special warfare operator that has put their lives on the line for our nation.” Adding to the criticism, the conservative Libs of TikTok, wrote, “The Navy Seals have gone woke. Our elite special forces. This is terrifying.” But it would seem the Navy SEALs were not alone in their promotion of Pride, as the Department of Defense shared a similar post. It stated, “Pride Month is a time to come together to honor the contributions of LGBTQ+ service members. We are committed to ensuring and promoting an atmosphere of dignity and respect for all civilian and military personnel.”

Followers weren’t pleased with that either, as users said things like, “You have purposely made a mockery of our country and my grandfather who died defending it.” Another commented, “Your account is a disgrace to our country. Delete it.” Additionally, someone pointed out, “This is NOT the Department of Defense’s mission. Stay out of the American people’s politics.”

In addition to this backlash, some have acknowledged the fact that June is also Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Awareness Month — which was also recognized by the Navy after the Pride post. And while other U.S. military social media accounts did not initially share posts related to Pride Month, the Air Force, Navy, Space Force, Coast Guard, and the Pentagon Force Protection Agency now have. Those accounts also received overwhelming backlash.

Lt. Gen. (Ret.) William G. Boykin, Family Research Council’s executive vice president, wasn’t surprised by the military’s Pride Month posts. He shared with The Washington Stand, “The negative comments regarding the support for Pride Month reflect the deep-seated sentiments of these sailors and other military personnel regarding the value of this woke program that exists in all the services.”

Boykin continued, “In a world like the one that we live in today, war is inevitable — and being ready for war is the responsibility of all our military leaders. I have not found anyone who can explain how this focus on the LGBT agenda is going to enhance the readiness of our armed forces.” The general added, “I personally applaud those that have the courage to say what they believe, as their expressions reflect the sentiments of the majority of people serving in our military today.”

According to Joseph Backholm, FRC’s senior fellow for Biblical Worldview and Strategic Engagement, the posts reveal a lot about the priorities of the military’s leadership. “This is yet another reminder that our current national leadership prioritizes the trivial to the detriment of the significant,” he shared with TWS.

“In theory,” he continued, “you can maintain military readiness while also posting silly and false things on social media. But we’ve seen plenty of other evidence that politics have caused our military to take their eye off the ball.” Ultimately, Backholm emphasized, “They make these statements because they believe in the cause” they’re representing. He went on to explain how, in their eyes, “negative responses” serve as fuel that “simply affirms how important it is for them to continue on the path.”

While some of the users that left negative comments wondered why the military supports an agenda many people reject, Backholm noted that, at the end of the day, it’s because the branches promoting it “don’t care that most of the country finds it bothersome and that most of the world finds it offensive.” Rather, he observed, “They have no doubt they are correct” in backing it. Backholm concluded, “They believe they are defending the oppressed and anyone who disagrees with them are one of the oppressors.”

AUTHOR

Sarah Holliday

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

‘What Makes a Man?’ Christian Coalition Publishes Statement on Godly Masculinity

While Pride Month is busy promoting homosexuality and gender confusion, a coalition of Christian men is proclaiming a doctrine of biblical masculinity. On Monday, the men’s chastity and marriage ministry Promise Keepers led a number of other Christian organizations and individuals in issuing “A Proclamation on Godly Masculinity,” which “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.” The “Proclamation” clarifies God’s design for masculinity, what masculinity is (and is not), and what men are called to do.

Speaking to Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on Monday night’s “Washington Watch,” former Major League Baseball player-turned-entrepreneur David Benham — who, along with his brother Jason, was one of the co-authors of the “Proclamation” — explained that Satan “does not want men to be godly men, biblical men, to embrace masculinity as God designed it.”

“The reason why masculinity is controversial in 2024 is because the world system has set itself against the very design and the image of God for manhood,” he explained. “And so what the world system has done is it elevates perversion and greed and promiscuity and dominance and chauvinism. And then it flips it around and calls its own invention toxic.” Benham further clarified:

“When the church forsakes its conscience and we don’t train up men to be biblical men, to lay their lives down, and then men turn around and use the same power and strength God has given us to stand against injustice — men are using it now to perpetrate evil, to be greedy, to be chauvinist, to dominate, and to do all kinds of evil around this world. And so in the absence of good men, evil men have risen. And that’s where we find this issue with toxic masculinity and all these things that we desperately need to set straight with good male leadership.”

The “Proclamation on Godly Masculinity” explains that “maleness (masculinity) and femaleness (femininity) are essential to building God’s world according to His purposes. The combination of masculinity as expressed by men and femininity as expressed by women reflect the image of the Creator and thus are wholly perfect.” Due to sin, “a man departs from the Godly masculinity in which he was created,” and that “can lead to a multitude of destructive outcomes such as exploitation of others, the pursuit of feminine traits, passivity in the face of injustice and/or oppression of those who are weaker.” But since Christ is God become man, “He is the best embodiment of both humanity and masculinity. By believing in Jesus as God who died and came back to life, and repenting of sin, a person is restored in their relationship to God.”

Thanks to the redemption purchased by Christ’s blood, the statement explains, men can fulfill their masculine purpose “as perfectly demonstrated in the man, Jesus Christ.” The redemption and restoration offered in Christ afford men the opportunity for sanctification, which is deepened as they “deny their sinful desires, pray, study Scripture, and actively look to serve others. They begin to live in the identity their Creator intended. Their desires align with God’s will, causing the peace, joy, unity, and power that Jesus promised to become reality.”

Benham explained that it is necessary to define the terms of Godly masculinity, saying, “We have to define what a true biblical man is. What is manhood? What is masculinity?” The proclamation he co-authored explains that masculinity is “the eternal foundational value present in men who live out the identity, order, and purpose that gives meaning to their lives as God intended.” It necessitates practicing servant leadership, exercising authority in the home and submitting to the authority of God, and living a life of self-discipline.

Godly men are called, the statement reads, to be peacemakers, to act with courage, to promote justice, to display controlled strength, to practice interdependence, and to exercise biblical conviction. “Being a peacemaker requires healthy, humble, and gracious confrontation,” the proclamation explains. “A man is not called to be a peacekeeper, simply trying to keep the peace at all costs. Sometimes, being a peacemaker requires personal risk — confronting the wicked for the sake of the innocent.”

As David pointed out, “In today’s culture, leadership is often associated with dominance. … It’s your way or the highway. That’s not the type of leadership we’re looking at. The type of leadership that we define in Scripture is the leadership of Jesus Christ, the servant leader who sacrificed himself for us, who laid his life down. And that’s truly the essence of biblical masculinity,” he emphasized, “is that a man is tasked, number one, to provide and to protect, to lay his life down, to be the first line of defense. … Thank God for all those moms who are out there doing wonderful things, especially in the absence of good men. But men are tasked with that responsibility. And so now, during Pride Month, especially, now is a time to clearly define what a man is.”

As the declaration explains, “All people experience fear, but courage is standing boldly for Truth anyway.” “Because of the unique call to men to defend and protect, masculinity requires an extra measure of courage. It must come from the core of a man’s character.” It continues, “As the leader in the war against Satan, man has a unique role in confronting injustice, the primary indicator of God’s enemy’s presence and effect.” To do this, men must learn to control their strength, using it “to protect the innocent, defend the oppressed, and stand for justice.”

Interdependence, the proclamation clarifies, is a sort of teamwork among men. “Because of their call to lead, each man must understand his strengths and limitations, recognizing his need to work in relationships and teamwork with others.” The document continues, “Wisdom understands the call to work with others as a team to rescue as many people as possible from sin and bring them to the gift of forgiveness in Christ.”

Finally, the proclamation states, biblical conviction “is a belief that is not negotiable. A man of God refuses to relent on his biblical convictions, no matter what it costs him.” Echoing St. Paul in Philippians 3:8-10, the document concludes, “A man of God considers money, fame, security, and admiration worthless compared to the immeasurable value of standing for Truth, no matter the cost.”

Men can visit WhatMakesAMan.org to sign the proclamation and “demonstrate your commitment to godly masculinity.”

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLE: Acceptance of Men in Women’s Sports Declining: ‘A Hopeful Sign’

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Pro-Palestinian Protestors and Pride Month Paraders Face ‘Progressive Standoff’

It’s officially June, which means the celebration of Pride has come out in full swing. Although Pride celebrations this year appear to be a bit more muted, many city streets are still cluttered with numerous festivals and parades rooted in the theme of “inclusion” and “acceptance” of all things gender and sexuality. However, even though such festivities are already rejected by countless Americans, this year the Pride displays seem to have been met with a new foe.

A “progressive standoff” ensued on Sunday as hundreds of LGBT paraders were confronted by hundreds of pro-Palestine protestors during the Philadelphia Pride Parade. The rainbow march was abruptly stopped when their path was blocked off by the anti-Israel crowd, who chanted phrases such as, “No Pride in genocide.” As reported by The Post Millennial, “Drag queens, trans folx, and Pride flag waving persons looked confused as they were unable to proceed down the parade route.”

Police were forced to break apart the two groups as they battled to claim the streets of Philadelphia. In a post on X, one bystander described the scene as “some kind of intersectional civil war.” And considering the somewhat unexpected nature of this controversy, Breitbart News pointed out, “The protest highlights a growing tension between segments of the Democrat Party base who believe that anti-Israel protests should take precedent over other causes like LGBTQ activism.” To that point, Joseph Backholm, Family Research Council’s senior fellow for Strategic Engagement and Biblical Worldview, commented to The Washington Stand, “On one hand, it’s not unusual for a political tribe to have competing priorities.”

He continued, “There are lots of issues in the world, and it’s normal for people who agree in many ways to still have disagreements about tactics or priorities. But what makes this intramural conflict interesting is the awareness that their differences are not superficial.” As Backholm stated, “Many on the Gaza side of this conflict would literally kill the Pride side if they could.”

Interestingly, Backholm noted that while both sides “are united in their disdain for Christianity,” it’s “for totally different reasons.” For instance, he explained, “Palestinians hate Christianity because it allows so much personal freedom that the Pride folks are allowed to exist at all. The Pride team hates Christianity because it doesn’t celebrate what they choose to do with their freedom.”

Since June has only just begun, the question is: Will we see more of these standoffs? As far as Backholm is concerned, it’s entirely possible — especially since pro-Hamas college campus activism is predicted to go into the summer months, as TWS Senior Writer Joshua Arnold reported in May. “College semesters may be winding down, but the anti-Israel, pro-Hamas demonstrations that have dominated the past month are not,” Arnold wrote, highlighting that not too long ago, Philadelphia saw new campus encampments pop up at Drexel University shortly before their summer term began — a school in close proximity to where last weekend’s events took place.

Regardless of how often these conflicting protests occur, Backholm said, “I suspect the Palestinian protests will always win,” given that, “in political standoffs, the more committed team virtually always wins.” He added, “The rainbow people will not endure actual pain for their cause, the Palestinian side will.”

Backholm predicted that we can also expect to see throughout the month the Left wrestling with how to handle problems of their own making. He expounded, “The challenge for the Left is that their worldview requires them to resolve conflicts by focusing on the identity of the people involved rather than the ideas involved.” He went on to say that “a critical theory framework” means whoever is more oppressed “has a greater right to be heard.” But in the case of Pride versus Palestine, “both the rainbow people and the Palestinian protestors are currently on the Mount Rushmore of oppression,” Backholm said, where “the Left doesn’t know who to listen to and who to ignore.”

From a biblical worldview, Backholm said, “Christians need to understand … that the ideas themselves are always more important than the group identity of the person speaking.” In other words, “We need to evaluate arguments based on how closely they align with truth, regardless of who is speaking, because everyone has the potential to be wrong and everyone has the potential to be right.”

He concluded, “Truth is what matters most,” so it would be wise for believers “to avoid silly games like this.”

AUTHOR

Sarah Holliday

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.

RELATED VIDEO: Pro-Palestine Protestors CLASH With Pride Marchers

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

‘If You Can Keep It’: America’s Foundation Is Crumbling but Not Lost

Pride Month is once again upon us — that special time of the year when governments, corporations, and seemingly every major institution band together to noxiously celebrate the chief of all sins, as well as a whole legion of sexual perversions, degeneracies, and aberrations.

As absolutely everything about it makes clear, Pride Month is not a matter of fostering tolerance nor even a misguided notion of affection for a marginalized minority (the very claim that the LGBT crowd is “marginalized” puts to shame even the most egregious cases of George Orwell’s “doublespeak”) but rather of insufferably demanding submission to grave depravity and psychologically browbeating the masses into accepting as “normal” that which is diabolically deviant. From leather bondage gear and public nudity at Pride parades to the mutilation of children’s genitals in surgical theaters, the accoutrements of Pride Month would have appalled generations past.

The top-down adoration of the LGBT agenda (for, of course, Pride Month is not a grassroots achievement but an innovation of the elite) is symptomatic of the decadence of America. Nigh-unfettered immigration pouring millions of third-world denizens across the border, rampantly rising lawlessness seeping out of urban hellscapes, the debilitating decline of both marriage and birth rates plaguing society, the stentorian campaign to slaughter untold thousands of unborn children, and the more recent corruption and subversion of the justice system to target lawful political figures like former President Donald Trump are also indicative of the impending demise of the Land of the Free.

While many on the political, social, and cultural Left like to hypothesize that America’s Constitution is out of date, designed uniquely for a people who lived and labored over 200 years ago and thus in need of revisions and updates according to modern standards, that is by no means the case. Certainly, America’s Founding Fathers likely never imagined the nightmare scenario of “doctors” chopping off the healthy breasts of teenage girls and the healthy penises of adolescent boys, blithely calling the whole barbaric affair “lifesaving,” but they were far from ignorant of degeneracy. Those on the Left pretend that the Founders never imagined or possibly foresaw the advent of such things as pornography, abortion, or the LGBT agenda.

Certainly, it is difficult to imagine the Founding Fathers sitting around their desks in Philadelphia, New York City, or Annapolis, Maryland and discussing whether or not there would be a time when “doctors” would cut off adolescent children’s sex organs, but the provisions they placed in the Constitution were intended to prevent such nightmares from ever becoming reality — by addressing the principles which could either prevent or permit such nightmares. But those principles rested upon and rest upon still certain conditions. When asked in 1787 what kind of government the Constitutional Convention had agreed upon for the fledgling American nation, Benjamin Franklin famously answered, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

We have not kept it. But we can perhaps reclaim it. Franklin himself intimated how. In a speech before that Continental Convention on September 17, 1787, the scientist-turned-statesman proclaimed:

“I think a General Government necessary for us, and there is no form of government, but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered; and [I] believe further, that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government.”

At the time, Franklin was nominally addressing the Convention’s president, the legendary George Washington. But the content of his speech was directed to three delegates present who expressed doubts about the form of government which their colleagues were crafting. In earnestly encouraging his fellow Americans to sign the Constitution, Franklin wisely observed that while other forms of government may devolve into despotism at one man’s whim, the American government was structured in such a way that only the will of the people could corrupt it. Franklin’s fellow Founder and America’s first Vice President John Adams put it more pointedly when he said, “Our [C]onstitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

America was once comprised of a moral and religious people, but no longer. Now, Pride Month is close to becoming a state-mandated religious observance, child sacrifice via abortion is a protected anti-sacrament across numerous states, drag queens preach the gospel of gay to children, the rank stench of marijuana hangs over most major metropolitan centers, the soul-sucking scourge of pornography is available at the click of a button on every cell phone and laptop, heartless hookup culture and DIY prostitution have their own trending apps, and all manner of godlessness is accepted and touted in the public square while Christianity is ostracized and shushed. This is the present state of the people.

Is it any wonder then that the American government — of those people, by those people, and for those people — is hurtling headlong into the very despotism that the Founders warned against? The Justice Department is abdicating its duty to the virtue it is named for and targeting pro-life Americans for the crime of standing up for the unborn; courts award government-run schools carte blanche to secretly transgenderify children, leaving American moms and dads in the dark; government “health” agencies commit fraud against the American people to bolster pharmaceutical sales; the legitimacy of authorities is smeared and castigated in pursuit of radical, unamerican agendas; and the dominant political party shields its own when the law is broken and just as wantonly breaks the law in persecuting its political opponents.

In establishing the American republic, the Founding Fathers also articulated how to reclaim it: morality and religion. The American government was, in fact, predicated upon morality and virtue, as the writings of the Founders evince — America’s foundation is morality and religion. This was not a novel concept, nor singularly unique to the new American government. The Founders were no simpletons: they were well-read men with a profound depth and breadth of knowledge of history and philosophy. Many of the Founders had enjoyed classical educations in the Christian West and were thus familiar with the most significant works of the ancient Greeks and Romans, as well as the Bible and the writings of Christian saints and heroes over the previous centuries. All of these sources upheld virtue as a necessary prerequisite for a functioning society.

Greco-Roman political philosophy, shaped by men like Plato and Aristotle, Cicero, and Marcus Aurelius, considered virtue paramount and even fundamental to the city, state, nation, and empire. These pagan ideas were perfected upon by Christian thought. In his voluminous treatise “The City of God,” penned shortly after the Sack of Rome, Augustine of Hippo concluded that for any earthly nation to survive and eventually thrive, its people must be virtuous, as are the citizens of the Heavenly City. Almost 1,400 years later, Franklin’s speech before the Continental Convention closely echoed Augustine when the saint wrote:

“In this world, therefore, the dominion of good men is profitable, not so much for themselves as for human affairs. But the dominion of bad men is hurtful chiefly to themselves who rule, for they destroy their own souls by greater license in wickedness; while those who are put under them in service are not hurt except by their own iniquity. For to the just all the evils imposed on them by unjust rulers are not the punishment of crime, but the test of virtue. Therefore the good man, although he is a slave, is free; but the bad man, even if he reigns, is a slave, and that not of one man, but, what is far more grievous, of as many masters as he has vices; of which vices when the divine Scripture [2 Peter 2:19] treats, it says, ‘For of whom any man is overcome, to the same he is also the bond-slave.’”

Indeed, Augustine’s words perfect upon not only the philosophy of the pagan Greeks and Romans, but even upon the American ideals of Franklin and his fellow Founders.

Sadly, as the rampant degeneracy and lawlessness of today make clear, we have not kept the republic given to us by the Founders, the foundations of America are crumbling — but we can reclaim the republic, we can restore the foundation upon which America rests. To do so, we must mount a crusade of virtue, we must model ourselves after the citizens of Heaven, we must become again a moral and religious people.

We may very well, as Augustine warned and as our Founders themselves experienced, live for a time under the rule of the unjust, of the vicious and licentious, but if we keep our eyes fixed upon God and the Heavenly City, such trials will serve as “the test of virtue” and will become for us a strength. The nation is not lost, so long as we keep alive virtue in our hearts.

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

RELATED VIDEO: It’s Not a Republic. We Couldn’t Keep It. | TIPPING POINT

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.