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It’s time for the annual Pride roundup. Is the proud month of celebration of atypical sexualities advancing, shrinking, or holding ground? The answer will surprise and encourage you.
JUN 2READ IN APP
Good morning, C&C, it’s Tuesday! As I promised, today’s roundup continues the annual tradition: the June roundup on the status of so-called “Pride Month.” In short: Its prognosis is poor. Last year saw corporate Pride sponsorships fall by -39%. This year marks a near-total collapse, as the tide continues to go out on parades and pronouns. A whirlwind tour of the deplorable state of alternative sexuality in America.
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Pride is one of the Seven Deadly Sins. (Not that corporate media has even glanced at the list lately. They are practically sprinting to Hell.) As 2026’s “Pride Month” kicks off, we wonder whether last year’s apparent withdrawal was a blip or a trend. If Target Corporation was the advance guard of the alphabet army’s main operation, peaking in 2023 with its spectacularly suicidal attempt to gender-neutralize its bathrooms, then it is also fair to use the peppy department store to measure the rainbow-colored army’s retreat. Over the weekend, Queerty —a digital platform covering “LGBTQ+” news— reported, “As expected, Target’s Pride collection is a rainbow flop.”
I had to report from Queerty because this year, corporate media didn’t even bothercovering the continuing shrinkflation afflicting 2026’s Target ‘Pride Month’ displays. In some stores, the retailer provided only a single small rack (shown above). The lack of coverage is noteworthy. Last year, corporate media did notice the problem. E.g., headline from Forbes, June 7, 2025: “Target Moves Pride Merchandise Aside To Spotlight Father’s Day And July 4th Holidays.”
Behold Exhibit A— the chain’s web page. On the second day of Pride Month, not a rainbow or colorful character can be found near the top of the firm’s website. Instead, we discover a normal-sized, white nuclear family with a blonde mom and a “USA” shirt almost visible inside the frame:
How far we’ve come! And in such a short period of time! In 2021, Joe Biden hosted his now-infamous “Trans Day of Awareness” at the White House, complete with Pride Flags hung above American Flags and deranged topless men sporting silicone implants. Yet four years later, in 2025, the ascendancy of the conservative counter-revolution and the Fall of Pride became clearest in June itself, as outraged media coverage reported corporate Pride sponsorships draining away like the tides.
The tide has gone all the way out now. This morning’s New York Times had zero Pride stories on its home page. Not even whiny ones. So.
That’s problematic enough. After all, the whole point of “Pride Month” is to shove it in everyone’s faces all June. Be loud and proud! So corporate media’s squeamish avoidance of celebrating atypical sexual lifestyles is a key indicator that things are headed in the right direction.
But a new wrinkle has appeared in the rainbow flag this year. Rather than just playing defense as they did in 2023-24 by boycotting Target stores and watery Lite beers, conservatives are now mounting an offense. Quietly. Conservatively. But still.
🌈 Yesterday, Memphis Commercial Appealreported, “What TN’s ‘Nuclear Family Month’ designation means for Pride in June.” Last month, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee signed a resolution from the state legislature designating June as “Nuclear Family Month.” So far as I can tell, corporate media ignored this story, too. If we pretend like it didn’t happen, maybe it will go away.
“The nuclear family, consisting of one husband, one wife, and any biological, adopted, or fostered children, is God’s design for familial structure and has been the bedrock of society since the creation of the world,” the resolution explained. “The nuclear family is God’s perfect design for humanity and is aligned with the long-held traditional values of Tennessee.”
Two years ago, a resolution like that would have exploded upon impact and immediately produced a bountiful harvest of lawsuits.
Legally speaking, a resolution declaring June as Nuclear Family Month is fine. It is equally non-discriminatory as declaring June to be “Gay Pride Month.” SCOTUS has repeatedly held that the government may endorse messages that it wants (e.g., on monuments or license plates) without having to be viewpoint‑neutral, since it is the government’s own speech. After all, resolutions don’t hurt anyone; they neither create nor destroy rights.
It’s a delightful new trend. Yesterday, Fort Wayne affiliate Alive-21 reported, “Gov. Braun proclaims June ‘Nuclear Family Month’ in Indiana” It was a ‘proclamation’ instead of a resolution, but enjoys the same speech protections. Indiana Governor Mike Braun also described the nuclear family as “consisting of one husband, one wife, and any biological, adopted, or fostered children,” echoing that the nuclear family “is God’s design for the family structure.” Tracking Tennessee’s language, Governor Braun also explained that the nuclear family has been the “foundation of society since the creation of the world.”
In Alabama, Governor Kay “Firecracker” Ivey proclaimed June to be Strong Families Month. She quite rationally tied it directly to Father’s Day (Sunday, June 21). “Fathers lead, support and protect families,” the Governor said in a statement that set Fourth-wave feminists short-cropped hair on fire.
“In coordination with Father’s Day,” the official statement said, “Governor Ivey is recognizing fathers’ lasting impact on the lives of Alabama children and families. As the head of the household, fathers play an essential role by providing leadership, protection and support that help shape strong families and communities.”
These courageous resolutions and proclamations represent more than just gentle pushback against “Pride Month.” They are pushing back, but they are also advancing conservative ideals —nuclear families, strong fathers, the fundamental religious foundation for the family— ideals that a few short years ago could not even be spoken aloud in the public square. Not without provoking a mostly peaceful protest.
This year, the biggest story might be how studiously corporate media is trying to ignore these proclamations and resolutions— rather than denouncing them.
In fact, mute corporate media outlets (NYT, WaPo, CNN, MSNBC, etc.) have run zeroprominent national stories on these 2026 proclamations. There have been no hand-wringing elites, activists, or experts decrying all the church-state confusion or predicting imminent Handmaid’s Tale-style religio-fascism. Their utter lack of any response is so unexpected and startling that I almost want to call in a wellness check.
🌈 It would be too much to argue that Pride Month has been vanquished. Die-harders are keeping the faith alive. Levi’s jeans, teachers’ unions, Sesame Street —presumably supporting gay toddlers— and Walt Disney World are all out in force this week, over-the-top (if not over-the-rainbow). They’ve been virtue signaling their allyship with the pronoun police to beat the band.
Big parades are or were still scheduled in New York City, LA, Chicago, and Houston. But they are all smaller than last year. More shrinkage. Media may be silent, but the activists aren’t feeling very gay these days (‘gay’ meaning ‘happy,’ of course).
The lowering ebb of the Pride tide can be spotted wherever you look. PBS, two days ago:
Last year, WFLA News Channel 8 reported, “Tampa Pride Cancels 2026 Events Due to Lack of Funding — No Parade, No Festival Next Year.” Apparently, their funding problem wasn’t fixed. Pride’s money desert is spreading. For one more example of many, two weeks ago, NBC-4 Los Angeles ran this dramatic headline:
While preparing today’s post, I diligently searched for local “Pride” headlines here in my deep-blue small town, Gainesville. Last June’s search produced too many Pride-related headlines to bother counting. Dozens, if not more. But this year, I couldn’t find one Pride story in my local media, apart from a quiet announcement about the downsizing of the “Pride Center,” whatever that is. (It’s been ‘temporarily closed’ since April.)
Last year (and for many years before that), Gainesville Pride organizers put on a parade that would leave you begging for eye bleach. But not in 2026. No parades this year.
There’s more. Unless you are so gullible you believe modern reporters still have ‘beats’ where they diligently suss out news stories, instead of just waiting around the office for press releases to come off the fax machine, the dearth of coverage probably means that a whole lot of money that used to promote Pride has suddenly dried up.
In other words, the coverage was probably never organic. It was always a paid-in-full psyop.
One wonders: Is this low tide of Pride coverage another beneficial side-effect of the combined closure of USAID and the castration of its domestic enforcement arm and corporate arm-twister, the Southern Poverty Law Center?
In theory, USAID money is supposed to belimited to international causes. But money is fungible. If laundered USAID money can make its way into Democrats’ domestic political campaigns, it can just as easily fund US-based sin parades.
Over the years, how many billions do you suppose USAID and coerced corporate sponsors paid out in grants to promote Pride Month here and around the world? What might it look like if all that money dried up in a single year? Would it maybe look like this?
Don’t forget the “Bud Lite” effect. And finally, we must give appropriate credit to influencers like Robbie Starbuck, who in 2024-2025 conducted a series of successful social media campaigns to name-and-shame woke U.S. corporations. Like dominoes, they fell, one after another: John Deere, Harley-Davidson, Lowe’s, JPMorgan, Walmart, Toyota, and more. The New York Times called Starbuck “the anti-DEI agitator that big companies fear most.”
What does it all mean?
Maybe Pride’s inglorious mudslide isn’t a completely organic pendulum swing. Maybe ‘Pride’ was never organic to start with. But there is, at least in part, one truly organic pendulum swing: the conservative counter-revolutionary response.
🌈 It is far too early to declare any kind of conservative victory. We’re winning, but we are still so far from victory that we haven’t even defined what it looks like yet. This may be a bridge too far for some, but I propose reversing gay marriage. After all, it didn’t work. Gay marriage rights were supposed to once and for all satisfy gay people’s civil rights concerns.
But instead, gay marriage catapulted us straight into polycules, twenty-six genders, trans insanity, and genital mutilations for minors. It’s a failed experiment. Roll it back.
This popular image (courtesy of Royal Dutch Airlines), making the social media rounds yesterday, unintentionally illustrated the Pride paradox. Only one combination keeps you from flying through the windshield in a crash. Can you pick the right one?
Don’t overthink it
In his terrific book Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis cogently observed, “The essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil. Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.”
In The Great Sin, Lewis added, “Pride is spiritual cancer. It eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense.” That was in the 1950s. Lewis was far ahead of his time. If he were still around, I would like to shake his hand.
You may or may not agree that ‘pride’ is the deadliest sin. Opinions, like excretory orifices, vary (and most of them stink). But you cannot deny that the kleptocratic raiding of the federal treasury to promote progressive groups and Democrat allies —every dollar being more hydrochloric acid poured straight into American culture— is the deadliest political sin.
Regardless, the evidence that we can see —two years on— is clear. A great, unstoppable pendulum is now swinging back. Whether it is “good or bad” is irrelevant. By God’s great mercy, we are enjoying one of the fastest cultural shifts in living memory. I can’t wait to find out whether the tide, which has already created a great conservative beachhead, keepsdraining out. I’ll let you know in next year’s June roundup.
For now, happy National Nuclear Family month!
Have a terrific Tuesday! Get back here tomorrow morning for another essential news roundup with a side dish of caffeinated commentary. It’s like an energy drink for your brain. See you then.
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Rose Rambles... 