The Straight Pride Parade Just Got Dumber

Boston’s Straight Pride Parade has been mocked by millions on Twitter, including Captain America. But this event meant to bravely celebrate heteronormativity out in the open just got dumber: It’s named Milo Yiannopoulos as its marshall.

That’s right. Milo Yiannopoulos the gay alt-right provocateur who worked at Breitbart News. Milo Yiannopoulos who has called feminism “a perpetual catfight” and the Black Lives Matter movement “the last socially acceptable hate group in America.” Milo Yiannopoulos who got banned from Twitter for his racist harassment of Leslie Jones. Milo Yiannopoulos whose pro-pedophilia comments lost him his position at Breitbart, his invitation to speak at CPAC, and his book deal with Simon & Schuster. Also, the Milo Yiannopoulos who Business Insider reports was recently banned from the whole of Australia over concerns he might “incite discord in the Australian community.”

That’s Boston’s Straight Pride Parade’s grand marshall. A pro-child molestation hatemonger so vile that even Breitbart wanted distance from him. But hey, it’s not like Brad Pitt would have taken the position.

Yeah. In other “this is insanely stupid” news, Super Happy Fun America, the group organizing the march, decided to use Brad Pitt’s image on their website, declaring him “the face of this important civil rights movement,” meaning Straight Pride. Now, we at Pajiba don’t know that Super Happy Fun America, which THR describes as an “apparently serious group,” asked Pitt to be their grand marshall ahead of Yiannopoulos. Our guess is that ridiculous request wouldn’t get past the first line of PR handlers. However, we do know what Pitt thinks of their agenda, as he’s demanded the group remove his name and images from their promotional website. So in place of his name and picture, here’s what their website now has posted:

Please note this “apparently serious group” didn’t pay for use of the stock image that says redacted, as it still has the Alamy watermark on it.

In other news, the reported Straight Pride Flag is exactly as stupid as you might expect. And thus it got dragged on Twitter.

"Aye fam, can you design me a flag for Straight Pride?"
"Sure, what'd you have in mind?"
"Not exactly sure, but I want it to scream 'sexuality is a prison'"
"Say no more." pic.twitter.com/X1RwQ1pzaK

— R (@telushk) June 5, 2019

Can you imagine that moment when they were sitting around trying to come up with a cool Straight Pride flag and suddenly realized, oh shit! Shit! THE GAY PEOPLE TOOK ALL THE COLORS! THEY TOOK THE WHOLE RAINBOW!

The whole fucking rainbow, man! pic.twitter.com/Yw18h5KE17

— Stonekettle (@Stonekettle) June 6, 2019

Um, I have questions about the straight pride flag.
-Why’s the woman symbol on its side? Is this in fact the doggy-style flag? I’d be a lot more down with that.
-Is the Hamburglar somehow implicated here?
-You get that a gay friend could’ve saved you from this design mess, yeah? pic.twitter.com/vvjFX6h2Zh

— Rebecca Makkai (@rebeccamakkai) June 6, 2019

The straight pride flag looks like a male mansplaining something to a bored female on a copy of the redacted Mueller report. pic.twitter.com/kqueGefeWt

— The Volatile Mermaid (@OhNoSheTwitnt) June 7, 2019

But Indy100 notes this isn’t Boston’s Straight Pride flag. The one above was flown in 2018 in a small Canadian town until public outrage brought it down.

According to Super Happy Fun America, this is their flag.

It’s posted on their website with this caption:

The Blue and Pink flag, which has represented our community for over 0.4 years, is integral to our movement. Unfortunately, the City of Boston has discriminated against our sexual orientation by denying us the opportunity to raise the flag at City Hall. We will continue to fight for equality until the Walsh administration embraces our community and a more progressive vision of the future.

Gang, I’m not sure how “serious” this group is. Perusing the Super Happy Fun America site, they described their president John Hugo as “living openly as a straight man.” Their “gay ambassador” Chris Bartley’s profile includes this line, “He became involved in the straight pride movement after being ostracized from established advocacy groups for merely suggesting that straight people be afforded equal rights.” I suspect this is a bunch of trolls who are relishing every headline. So part of me cringes at giving them more attention because maybe the joke is on us for thinking any of this is “real.”

But there are some signs that Super Happy Fun America are more than trolls. For one, Hugo is an aspiring politician. He ran as a Republican for Massachusetts’ 5th Congressional District in the U.S. House in 2018, but was absolutely trounced by Democrat Katherine Clark, who got 75.9% of the vote. As for Vice President Mark Shahady, Heavy reports he is a self-professed Proud Boy, who has used social media to mock Parkland survivor Emma Gonzalez.

Meanwhile, on Twitter, Bartley proclaims himself “The Free-Thinking Queer” and #GaysForTrump. In an interview with Queerty, he suggested that Pride Month has lost its advocacy element, saying, “It used to be about fighting against the ‘man’ and now it’s a drink and work with man.” He continued, “Essentially being a sheep. Gay pride used to be about free speech and now they are not. So this is why straight pride has become a reality. To showcase how extreme the left has become. I will be attending Gay Pride in Boston however will not be taking any questions from the media.” [sic]

In a now-deleted tweet quoted on Queerty, Batley wrote:

Aside from the superficial insults, Bartley revealed this Straight Pride Parade is a joke concocted by Right Wingers (and at least one Alt-Right winger). Liberals and the LGBTQ community are the intended punchline. So, picking Yiannopoulos as their grand marshall is likely a cynical ploy to outrage liberals and to draw more attention to themselves. However, it wasn’t only the left that has bitten on the Straight Pride news. On Super Happy Fun America’s site, they posted a supercut of coverage that begins with Tomi Lahren’s Fox News piece where she called Pride Month “open season on straight white men in this country.”

However, if Super Happy Fun America thinks being mocked by the internet, shunned by celebrities like Chris Evans, Brad Pitt, and Smash Mouth, and tied to a human dumpster fire like Yiannopoulos is “owning the libs,” then the jokes on them.

As is this one, which is too good not to include:

me explaining to my boyfriend why we’re going to straight pride pic.twitter.com/ZtXpLaV05s

— Eva Victor (@evaandheriud) June 4, 2019