Separate Sexual Identity and the State, by Daniel McCarthy

A new wave of crime has swept the country and this time progressive forces are demanding harsh punishments, even wanting teenagers to be charged with capital crimes.

The reason for this is that it is a political crime and the young people are accused of disrespecting the flag – more specifically the Gay Pride Flag.

The latest front in the culture war is the humble zebra crossing in the city.

Trendy cities across the country, or at least cities that want to be perceived as trendy, have begun repainting crosswalks in the colors, stripes and chevrons of the LGBTQ flag.

In some places, this is a Pride Month event, but in others, including Nashville, Tennessee; Alexandria, Virginia; and Westport, Connecticut, it is a permanent change to the cityscape.

If these communities had erected statues honoring war heroes or the Founding Fathers of the United States, politically motivated vandalism by youth might be tolerated.

But in Delray Beach, Florida, and Spokane, Washington, teenagers in pickup trucks or on Lime scooters are speeding along the sacred symbol of “any sexuality except heterosexuality,” and there is no tolerance for that.

Nineteen-year-old Ruslan Turko and two unnamed minors are charged in Spokane with first-degree malicious damage to property.

Is pursuing children who leave skid marks on zebra crossings usually a priority for the police there?

These teenagers are in trouble not for what they did, but for what they thought and meant – and for what one of them allegedly said: “F–k you, asshole!”

In America’s cities, you don’t get arrested so easily for using swear words or marking a street with tire tracks, but what if you talk badly about queers and deface their symbol?

We still have the First Amendment, but the separation of church and state does not apply to sexuality and state.

This effectively means that we have a new kind of blasphemy law that prohibits insults against homosexual symbols, but no longer against religious ones.

Delray Beach police investigated the crime of vandalizing a crosswalk flag for a week before 19-year-old Dylan Brewer turned himself in.

He is also accused of property damage.

Law enforcement authorities issued a statement clarifying the ideological nature of his crime:

“The reckless action caused significant damage to the street painting, which serves as a symbol of unity and inclusivity for the LGBTQ community.”

This was not a mere traffic violation.

The country could be a calmer place if violent teenagers were regularly arrested for their antisocial behaviour.

But the cities that are treating these children like the January 6 protesters are not trying to keep the streets clean—they are enacting moral laws.

Even today, the Liberals insist that they are against it:

They still say it is unconstitutional for Louisiana to pass a law requiring the Ten Commandments to be taught in all public schools in the state.

Progressive people would never approve of painting a Christian cross on a public crosswalk.

But what distinguishes the symbol of pride of one group from the symbol of love of another?

What right does the LGBTQ community have to an official presence in public that is denied to religious believers?

“The legitimate powers of government extend only to acts, and not to opinions,” wrote Thomas Jefferson in the same 1802 letter to the Baptists of Danbury, Connecticut, in which he described the First Amendment as “building a wall of separation between church and state.”

Of course, the Baptists of Danbury were not enemies of religion—rather, they complained that they should not be taxed to finance a religion that was not their own, in this case the established Congregational Church of Connecticut.

Yet if Baptists should not be taxed to fund Congregationalist privileges, and if it is irresponsible to tax Jews to fund Christian public symbols, why should all religious believers—whose traditions often teach morals incompatible with the homosexual lifestyle—be taxed to fund the gay pride market?

Progressive sexuality is as exclusive as any religion: if you doubt this, ask anyone leading a gay pride parade if “straight pride” is part of the celebration.

A sexual identity is inevitably a moral identity, just like a religious one.

In other contexts, progressives say America is a pluralistic country that cannot use the power of government to impose one view on controversial moral issues on everyone.

However, they make an exception when it comes to sexual morality.

There is a fork in the road here:

If liberals want to separate church and state, they must recognize that the same principle also separates sexuality and state, and that zebra crossings with gay pride flags violate that principle.

A conscientious religious believer or non-believer should not be forced to pay for the symbols of another person’s sexuality any more than he or she should be forced to pay for another person’s church.

Alternatively, liberals can abandon their hypocrisy and admit that the state of Louisiana, or any other state, can publicly honor a religion if local governments are free to subsidize and publicly promote gay pride events.

The teenagers who vandalized the crosswalks in Delray Beach and Spokane acted unjustly.

But they have drawn attention to another injustice – the injustice committed by those cities that have enshrined sexuality as an official religion.

Daniel McCarthy is the editor of Modern Age: A Conservative Review. For more books by Daniel McCarthy, visit www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Tristan B. at Unsplash