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In this episode Trent reveals why Catholics who promote Pride month and rainbow Pride flags reject the very same rationale when it is used to defend other controversial symbols.
Welcome to the Council of Trent Podcast, a production of Catholic Answers.
Trent Horn:
Well, Pride Month is almost over, though, every month nowadays feels like Pride Month in the culture that we live in. So today, though, before Pride Month rounds out to an official close, I wanted to speak about an element of it promoted by people like Father James Martin and others who say we should celebrate Pride Month or celebrate and fly the rainbow Pride flag, how they’re inconsistent in the arguments that they use to defend this particular practice that leads to distortions, ambiguities, misunderstandings about what the Catholic faith teaches, what God’s plan is for our sexuality. So that’s what I want to briefly touch upon here in today’s episode.
Trent Horn:
But before I do that, I want to remind everyone that we have a special offer going on now for patrons of the podcast. So only for the month of June, so just for the next few days, if you become a patron at trenthornpodcast.com, you get free access to my new course arguing against abortion. Now, I’m recording this earlier in June. The Dobbs decision hasn’t come down yet. Maybe it hasn’t even come down by the time this episode airs. I don’t know, but regardless of what’s happening, I’m sure people are talking about abortion or they will be soon. So you’ll definitely want to check that out. Go to trenthornpodcast.com. If you support the podcast, you get it free access to my arguing about abortion course. Only for this month if you sign up this month. And if you sign up, you get free access to our catechism study series and also Catholic Answers magazine. You’ll get six issues a year, physical magazine delivered to your door. Definitely go and check that out and keep supporting us in the work we’re doing here at trenthornpodcast.com. All right. So let’s jump into this.
Trent Horn:
I’m going to start with a video from Father James Martin, that he put out a few weeks ago, talking about can Catholics celebrate Pride? And Father Martin in the video, he basically goes up against a straw man argument. It’s one I’ve heard, but it’s a very weak argument against celebrating Pride month. Because people will say, “Well, you shouldn’t celebrate Pride month. Pride is a sin.” And Father Martin will say, “Well, know what LGBT people mean by Pride is not vanity, it means a sense of dignity and worth.” And I see where he is coming from here. And that this is a weaker argument. It’s okay to be proud that you’re Irish. It’s okay to be proud that you’re Catholic. It’s okay to be proud that you’re an American because “I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free.” So it’s a weaker argument. It’s not the one that we should lead with because then Father Martin takes it up and knocks it down. And it’s really a straw manner.
Trent Horn:
It’s a weaker argument for the claim that Catholics should not fly the Pride flag. Because my primary argument is, Catholics should not promote symbols that are antithetical to the Catholic faith. We don’t fly pentagrams. We don’t fly swastikas. We don’t promote the Crescent moon, which is the symbol of Islam. Even if there was a tragedy involving a Muslim community or a Satanist community, I would not show those symbols to show solidarity with these individuals, because those symbols represent something that directly contradicts the Catholic faith. And so what Father Martin does and others like him, you’ll see Catholics who have the rainbow flag in their social media handles things like that. They’ll say, well, “No, this doesn’t mean that homosexual conduct is okay or promoting same sex marriage. All it means is that people should be treated with dignity regardless of their sexual orientation or identity.” So he let me just play Father Martin’s argument for why Catholics can celebrate Pride month and I’ll, I’ll dig deeper into the argument that he makes.
Father Martin:
The Catechism of the Catholic Church asks us to treat LGBTQ people with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. And participating in Pride events or at least supporting our LGBTQ friends is one way to do this.
Trent Horn:
Well, he’s right, we should have respect, compassion, and sensitivity for those who struggle with disordered attractions or disordered senses of identity. We should be respectful. We shouldn’t use slurs. One thing you should avoid, and I alluded to it a little bit in the documentary, the Father Martin documentary I talked about on Monday… When you talk about LGBT issues, talk about with sensitivity. Even if there are people with you who don’t identify as LGBT because they might be struggling with these things. And so we need compassion sensitivity there, but am I going to support Pride parades, which are not merely a celebration of the inherent dignity of individuals. They are a celebration, a flaunting, a provocative flaunting of immorality of they celebrate sex outside of marriage, sodomy, they celebrate these behaviors as goods. They celebrate distorting what marriage is. That is what these events are proud of. And why it’s scandalous for Catholic to be involved in them.
Father Martin:
And just because you celebrate Pride, doesn’t mean you have to agree with what every video, every article or even every float in a parade has to say, it’s more about supporting the fundamental human rights of this community.
Trent Horn:
Okay? So that’s essentially his argument and what you’ll hear other people say who are Catholic, who have the rainbow flag and their social media handles, they’ll say, “Well, I’m not saying, there are people that for them, the flag means pro same-sex marriage, pro sodomy, these things are moral goods. When I fly the rainbow flag, Father Martin will say, or other Catholics who follow his kind of ambiguous teachings, will say what it means to me is just that people who are identify as LBGT have human dignity. And so we ought to respect their human dignity. And treat them with respect, compassion, and sensitivity as the catechism says.” But here is the problem with that argument is that these same people refuse to accept that explanation for other symbols that they say Catholics cannot fly or that they cannot promote because those symbols are antithetical to the Catholic faith.
Trent Horn:
I will give you two examples. All right. The first one would be the Confederate flag. So this is an article from the national Catholic reporter. This is a few years ago. Might have been after the Charleston shooting, I’m not sure. National Cathedral to remove Confederate flag images, June 9th, 2016. So here is a picture of the stain glass window. I’m sure it’s been removed by now. That was six years ago. This is in the Washington National Cathedral will replace depictions of the Confederate flag in its stain glass windows. The board of the cathedral announced the decision June 8th, almost a year after the South Carolina governor ordered the Confederate flag removed from state house grounds. The governor’s action followed the fatal June 17th shootings at Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston. Okay. So the idea here is that the Confederate flag is removed because for some people, the Confederate flag is a symbol of slavery.
Trent Horn:
It is a symbol of racism and I’ve never met people like this. I have met people that for them, the Pride flag is a symbol of the moral goodness of homosexual conduct. I meet lots of people who they’ll say that’s what the flag means to them. So that at least encouraged me why we ought not fly it. I’ve actually never met somebody that for them, the Confederate flag is a symbol of racism and a symbol we need to bring back slavery or, or something like that. I’m sure there are people out there like that. I’ve never personally met them. I don’t hang out with racist people. So there you go. But the idea here is that even if there are just some people, some awful evil people who will shoot black people in a church and promote the Confederate flag while they do it.
Trent Horn:
And these are terrible people. The fact that they exist and the Confederate flag refers to racism for them means that the flag just has racist even if it was that way in history, it does not matter what you think the flag means to you. The fact that for some people, the flag represents the evil of segregation and slavery means no Catholic should fly this flag. Let me point you out to another article here. This is from [inaudible 00:08:35]. I think it’s an evangelical liberal magazine. The author here, Eric Martin is Catholic and he wrote an article called, “The Catholic Church has a Visible White Power Faction.” Well, there’s a restrain journalist for you. All right. And he says here once persecuted by the KU Klux Klan, some Catholics now embrace the most extreme forms of racial hatred. Now, this article was actually controversial. “The Catholic Church has a Visible White Power Faction” by Eric Martin.
Trent Horn:
This was published August 2020 during the summer of protests that came after the killing of George Floyd. This is controversial and there is an editor’s note here related to a correction with the article. So it was taken down then put back up because Martin got something important, really wrong. It says here an earlier version of this article claimed that the writers of the document open wide our hearts, the enduring call to love, a pastoral letter against racism, which is a document from the USCCB, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, that earlier, his original article, Martin said that the bishops “were silent on three symbols of racism, swastikas, Confederate flags, and nooses.” This is not true. So originally Martin said the bishops promote racism, because they said nothing about nooses, swastikas or Confederate flags.
Trent Horn:
The actual language of the document said the reappearance of symbols of hatred, such as nooses and swastikas and public spaces is a tragic indicator of rising racial and ethnic animus. So they did condemn the noose and the swastika, but they did not condemn the Confederate flag. And Martin says, this does not go far enough. The Bishop said later that the Confederate flag, they did not include that as a symbol of hatred because they said some still claim it, the Confederate flag, as a sign of heritage. And so Martin absolutely will not accept this. He says that this logic indefensibly hand waves the history of slavery, murders, opposition to civil rights and violence like the recent shooting in Charleston as a vaguely benign heritage. No, that is not what the bishops are saying here, but he is mad that they won’t condemn the Confederate flag because from his perspective, the Confederate flag, the fact that some people would consider it, that it’s a symbol of hatred and an evil.
Trent Horn:
The fact that for other people, the Confederate flag is just a symbol of heritage. And so there’s nothing wrong with it. Doesn’t matter. The fact that some people use it for evil means no Catholic should use it. It’s scandalous. But then that same argument applies to the rainbow Pride flag. I would tell Father Martin and others. Okay. Just because you and other people, the rainbow Pride flag it just means the inherent dignity of all people, including LBGT people. Most people, if you ask people at a Pride parade, 99% of them will tell you, the flag means love is love, that you shouldn’t judge people, there’s nothing wrong with homosexuality, there’s nothing disordered about being transgendered. LGBT people have the right to marry. Marriage can be it’s any two people. They will tell you that is what the flag means.
Trent Horn:
And that’s the people who created the flag. That is what they meant by, is created by a self-identified gay man in San Francisco, in the 1960s. All right. The flag originally had hot pink in it to symbolize sexuality and then they dropped it because that’s a really expensive fabric. Okay. So the argument that if Catholics can’t fly the Confederate flag or have it in their social media icon, because it is related in some way, even if it’s only a minority of people that it is used as a symbol of evil, that if some people use the Confederate flag as a symbol of the evil of racism and if these liberal Catholics like Father Martin would say, you shouldn’t have a Confederate flag because it’s connected to racism in that way, by a minority of people.
Trent Horn:
By that logic, Father Martin refutes his own position, that Catholics should not have the rainbow Pride flag because the majority, the near unanimous consensus of the people who fly the rainbow Pride flag or put it on social media is the affirmation of trues that contradict the Catholic faith about homosexual conduct, transgender identity, the nature of marriage, even just the nature of sex outside of marriage. Because these people would also say that it believes if fornication is okay, prostitution is right. I think many of them would even affirm that though they call it sex work. So there you see the hypocrisy and then I will give you one other example that the liberal Catholics who say, “It’s fine to have a Pride flag, because it means to me this.” They don’t accept that for the Confederate flag and there’s one other symbol. They will not accept it for. And that is a MAGA hat, remember the MAGA hats? That was the hat made popular in President Trump’s campaign in presidency, a red hat that says Make America Great Again, MAGA. That’s weird I have to explain.
Trent Horn:
I’m sure you all know what a MAGA hat is, but in case you don’t. There was an article in the Catholic magazine, Common Wheel by Molly Wilson O’Reilly and the article’s title is “Suiting Up for Team Racist.” I love the titles that come up with these things. Catholics should call it out. And O’Reilly says, if you’re Catholic, you cannot wear a MAGA hat. You just cannot because it’s racist. End of discussion. This was published February 7th, 2019. I think this was back with the Covington kids. You remember they were at the Capital for the March for Life and one of the kids was wearing a MAGA hat and he’s smiling. And a Native American is beating a drum in his face. And CNN said that, “Oh, look at these kids attacking a Native American.” When it turns out they weren’t doing anything wrong. The Native American walks up to, Nick Sandman, the kid, walks up to his face and starts beating a drum. And he was just standing there. He didn’t do anything. And the media basically put him on trial as a racist with false evidence.
Trent Horn:
And then the real story came out. I’d always been suspicious of mainstream media, but that really sealed the deal for me when I saw that. So in any case, O’Reilly she says this, standing with Trump is racist. It is racist regardless of what motivates you to do it, your desire to see the Supreme Court filled with conservative judges, enthusiasm for low taxes, whatever it may be, you stand with Trump, you’re racist. End of story. And so Rich Lowry at the National Review called her out on that. And he says, “For much of progressive America, if you are wearing the hat, you are suiting up for team racist. To which O’Reilly says, “Well, yes.” Lowry flushes out as column by quoting a number of people who had said as much on Twitter, including me.
Trent Horn:
And she had said, “You don’t let your kid wear a MAGA hat and then act defended where they get taken for a racist.” And you only tweeted half the tweet. And she says, “Every person now claiming those MAGA teens…” The Covington kids, “… Have been unfairly judged as racist is trying consciously or not to place Trump gear and MAGA hats in a neutral category.” So what O’ Riley says is that the MAGA hat even if, to you, Make America Great Again, just means you want economic prosperity. You want things that the Catholic Church would recognize are good, low unemployment rates, low levels of racial violence and hatred. Even that if you think Make America Great Again means promoting particular goods, the Catholic Church would agree with does not matter. Doesn’t matter if the MAGA hat means that to you because there are people who, a spouse racist ideology, while wearing t`he MAGA hat and that’s what it means to them.
Trent Horn:
So it’s the same thing with a Pride flag. The fact that other people say that it means racism means Catholics cannot wear it. The fact that for other people, they say the Confederate flag is racist, Catholics cannot fly that. I don’t put bumper stickers on my car. I don’t carry flags. So I don’t wear a MAGA hat. I don’t fly a Confederate flag. I have nothing because my political beliefs, I share with other people in conversation, I don’t just put them on my car or put them on a flag or in my yard or things like that. But the point I’m making here is that these people are inconsistent, that they’ll say, “Oh, the Pride flag, it’s totally. I’m not contradicting Catholic teaching because it means this to me”, but they will not allow someone to make that same explanation for why they wear a MAGA hat or why they wave Confederate flag.
Trent Horn:
I am not saying the MAGA hat and Confederate flag are racist symbols. I’m not saying that. What I am saying is that these people will say it is and not allow them to have the explanation, but it does not mean that to me. Sorry, game over is what they will say for Confederate flags and the MAGA hat. But for the Pride flag, they’ll do all kinds of mental gymnastics to jump around and say, “Ah, but it means this to me, just the equal dignity of LGBT people. No, I’m sorry, in our modern culture, that flag means there’s nothing wrong with sodomy. Same sex marriage is great. And if you say otherwise, you are a bigot opposed to civil rights.” That flag is completely contradicted to what the Church teaches. And if you associate yourself with it as a Catholic, you cause scandal and confusion among people and you ought not do that because we should always charitably lead people to truth and not put forward scandalous things that could mislead them into thinking that evil is good or good is evil. We shouldn’t do that.
Trent Horn:
So in any case, I hope this was helpful for you. That rounds us out here on Pride month, but you’ll see rainbow Pride flags all year long in certain people’s social media profiles flying them in front of schools. I know at the beginning of June, Nativity School of Worcester, Massachusetts, the Bishop said don’t fly a Pride flag anymore. And people got mad about that, but he made the absolutely right call because that symbol goes against what students should be taught in their moral theology classes. The two are reconcilable in that regard. Courage, the Catholic apostolate dedicated to living a chased life. If you have same sex attractions. Courage, doesn’t use the rainbow imagery.
Trent Horn:
Instead it focuses the imagery on Christ. Christ crucified, Christ risen because it is Christ who ultimately helps us to conquer any disorder desires we have and to live a chase fulfilling life, regardless of how original sin has warped our own personal desires. So that in our deepest selves, we can desire for that, which is true good and beautiful in Christ himself. So once again, hope that was helpful. Thank you guys so much and I hope you have a very pleasant day.
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