“The month of June has arrived and, once again, the godless groomers in our society want to attack what is decent, holy, and righteous so they can ultimately harm our children.”
After starting his Monday morning with a nice cup of tea, Cockburn was surprised to open his email and find this attack on the alphabet community from Dave Williams, chairman of Colorado Republicans.
The email, which also had last year’s email pasted below, was short and aggressive: “Thank you, and as we said last year, together, we can protect our children and future… but only if you get involved and defend the most vulnerable in our society from these woke creeps.”
A clip of Pastor Mark Driscoll’s sermon was linked in the email, in which he engages in a cute object lesson. Driscoll had liquid versions of all the colors of the Pride flag set out on a table, and combined them all to make a gray-brownish drink. “Darkness” as the pastor labeled it, and compared it to his glass of water — the Living Water, or Jesus Christ. His whole sermon is titled “Black and White in a Rainbow World.”
While the email never said “burn the Pride flag,” many are citing this tweet from the Colorado Republican Party — the caption reads “Burn all the #pride flags this June” with a big fire GIF.
Essentially, the Colorado GOP is deeply concerned about the LGBTQ+ community and its potential effect on children.
“It’s alienating a large group of people within the party,” said Valdamar Archuleta, president of the Log Cabin Republicans of Colorado. “This was a massive mistake. We need to work on unifying the party and growing the party, not isolating people with divisive messages like this.” There have been other concerns about how these emails misrepresent the party. But Williams makes “no apologies for saying God hates Pride or Pride flags, as it’s an agenda that harms children and undermines parental authority.”
Many conservatives and Republicans are ready to “fight.” Pastor Driscoll illustrated this at a certain point in his sermon. “Here’s my question to you. If Christians are called to contend, where’s your war?” Unfortunately, the war the Colorado GOP is engaging in consists of fighting fire with fire.
If patriots across the nation are horrified by the burning of the American flag, it’s not clear how burning their opponent’s flag will make anything better. While The Count of Monty Cristo is a deeply satisfying story, readers see the pollution of revenge eating Edmond from the inside out far easier than he can see it in himself. Life isn’t fair: Cockburn knows better than anyone. Will employing the same tactics as your adversaries really make it fair?
In the end, both the Republican and Democratic parties — heck even Cockburn himself — can benefit from the scripture in last year’s Colorado GOP email. “Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a fall.” — Proverbs 16:18
