Tuesday, July 7, 2015

Union Pride Becomes Gay Pride - Paul Kengor



by Paul Kengor

Welcome, ladies and gentleman, to the new America. Once upon a time, union guys were about God and guns, deer hunting and fishing, beer and whiskey, football and power tools, dipping snuff and going to the racetrack, driving pick-up trucks and playing poker. Now, union guys do Gay Pride marches.

The fundamental transformation of the New America, the country once stabilized by vital Judeo-Christian underpinnings, continues to “progress” at stunning speed in a culture rapidly secularizing and careening to disaster. The transformation is creating all sorts of bizarre new possibilities, sent into warp-speed with Anthony Kennedy’s swing vote on gay marriage that will spawn a long, protracted religious battle. Justice Kennedy is the prototype of a dupe, blissfully thinking he has generated peace and love when, in fact, he has just enabled a painful period of persecution for many religious believers at the hands of the forces of “tolerance.”

Among the once-unimaginables in the New America is the image of blue-collar union guys marching arm-in-arm in solidarity with gay comrades in Gay Pride marches. I half-sarcastically raised this possibility in the book manuscript that I turned in several months ago -- what became my new book, Takedown: From Communists to Progressives, How the Left Has Sabotaged Family and Marriage. I wrote of such a surreal image, but then deleted it, wrote it again, deleted it again, and then wrote it once more. I thought to myself even then, “Nah, no one will believe this one.”

I kept the passage because of what I was reading in communist literature, gung ho as modern communists are for the entirety of the LGBT agenda. “Modern CPUSA [Communist Party USA] views gays and transgender people as integral to the modern Marxist agenda as labor unions,” I wrote in Takedown. “That is truly an eye-opening development. In fact, one article at CPUSA’s website heralded bringing gays and transgender people and unions together.”

That article appeared a year ago, in a July 1, 2014 piece in People’s World, the CPUSA mouthpiece and successor to the Daily Worker. Tellingly titled, “Unions celebrate LGBTQ progress, say challenges remain,” it noted the work of the AFL-CIO (among other unions) in celebrating “Gay Pride” and “advancing LGBTQ rights.” Thus, I marveled, and speculated: “How times have changed. How soon before unionized steel workers and coal miners and auto workers are asked to march arm-in-arm with gay men at Gay Pride parades, and denounced as intolerant ‘fascists’ if they feel uncomfortable and refuse? CPUSA no doubt would laud the prospect.”

Well, here’s the kicker: As that book was being shipped out of the warehouse, Ford workers from the auto union in Chicago were displaying rainbow colors while marching arm-in-arm with gay men at a Gay Pride event in Chicago, and CPUSA was lauding the moment.

Indeed, I learned this at the website of People’s World last week. Fittingly titled, “An American evolution: pride, love and rethinking social change,” the article boasted a beaming photo of Ford workers carrying a rainbow-colored banner that declares, “BUILT WITH PRIDE RIGHT HERE IN CHICAGO.” It featured a multi-colored logo from something called “Ford Globe.” Take note: in the New America, even corporate America is behind the gay-marriage juggernaut.

The article began with this very revealing statement about the gift that Anthony Kennedy and the Supreme Court have given not only the gay rights and same-sex-marriage movement but also the communist movement: “CHICAGO -- This was one Pride Parade we were not going to miss. Apparently we were not alone because this past weekend millions of people celebrated a giant step forward on this nation’s evolutionary path -- the Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage in all 50 states. The ruling came just two days before the Stonewall rebellion anniversary [hyperlink to previous People’s World piece celebrating Stonewall], June 28, the date around which pride parades take place.”

The reporter then underscored the united front that came out for the Pride Parade, including the happy union comrades: “Which brings me back to Chicago’s Pride Parade. As we watched contingent after contingent, float after float, pass by, we could not help but notice the domination of corporate logos. But who were on those floats and marching down the street tossing out corporate paraphernalia to the adoring crowd? Workers, employees and their families and friends. It was another kind of Labor Day parade. Workplace after workplace came together to celebrate the right to be who you are and who you love…. Ford workers marching and carrying the Ford banner and wearing their Ford shirts with a UAW logo and a UAW banner in the mix, or Kraft employees or employees of insurance giant AON or sports teams like the Chicago Cubs, Bulls, Sky and Fire, or even Fox Chicago (!) in a jubilant display of upholding equality.”

It’s so completely appropriate to see this in Chicago, the town where Communist Party USA was launched a century earlier and also the town where our first Gay-Marriage and Fundamental Transformation President was launched.

Welcome, ladies and gentleman, to the new America. Once upon a time, union guys were about God and guns, deer hunting and fishing, beer and whiskey, football and power tools, dipping snuff and going to the racetrack, driving pick-up trucks and playing poker. Now, union guys do Gay Pride marches.

How did this one happen?

Apart from the general cultural decay, the primary answer lays in unions and their longtime ideological marriage to the Democratic Party: thus their new marriage to gay marriage.

And really, in that sense, this shouldn’t surprise us at all. I’m from Western Pennsylvania, steel country. My relatives and neighbors were union guys. It never ceased to amaze me how the most conservative men you’d ever meet, war vets who loved the Pittsburgh Steelers and their Iron City beer, who were the epitome of masculinity, who were -- in a word -- absolutely not liberals or secular progressives in any way, would nonetheless reflexively pull the lever for the Democrats when their union ordered. Time and time again, they voted against their values.

Obviously, I’ve known exceptions to this, but way too often, this was the norm. One of my cousins once observed to me, jokingly, that union guys would vote for a gay communist if their union told them. Yes, their heroes were John Wayne, George Patton, Clint Eastwood, Mike Ditka, Mean Joe Greene, and Jack Lambert, but they’ll vote for Hillary Clinton if Boss Trumka issues the edict. They’d vote for Bruce Jenner for president if their union demanded.

And so, yes, they’ll march in Gay Pride parades. If boss-man tells them to carry water for gay rights, in solidarity with the liberal-Democrat agenda, they’ll do it. Don’t be surprised to someday pull behind a truck with a UNION, YES! bumper sticker in rainbow colors.

This is a striking new wrinkle in the Democratic coalition, but, really, it’s predictable given the politics. Be prepared for more of it, especially with the liberal media’s support.

And so, when I asked in Takedown, tongue in cheek, how long it would be before auto workers were asked to march arm-in-arm with gay men at Gay Pride parades, with CPUSA cheering, we already have the answer: No time at all.

America, my friends, truly has been fundamentally transformed.


Paul Kengor’s latest book is Takedown: From Communists to Progressives, How the Left Has Sabotaged Family and Marriage. His other books include Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century.

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/07/union_pride_becomes_gay_pride.html

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

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