{"id":2286010,"date":"2024-06-30T10:39:02","date_gmt":"2024-06-30T14:39:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/pride-month-goes-out-with-a-whimper\/"},"modified":"2024-06-30T10:45:12","modified_gmt":"2024-06-30T14:45:12","slug":"pride-month-goes-out-with-a-whimper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/pride-month-goes-out-with-a-whimper\/","title":{"rendered":"Pride Month Goes Out with a Whimper"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">14<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fpride-month-goes-out-with-a-whimper%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2286010&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The article\u2064 discusses the perceived decline in \u2063prominence and enthusiasm for\u2062 Pride Month \u200cwithin the U.S. corporate sector \u2064and broader public spaces as \u2063of June 2024. Observations indicate a noticeable reduction in \u2062corporate participation and sponsorship in LGBTQ+ activities and\u200b events \u2062during \u200cPride Month. Marketing experts and professors, such as Daniel Korschun \u200bfrom Drexel University and Joanna Schwartz from\u200d Georgia \u2064College &#038; State University,\u2064 noted\u200d a trend of companies scaling\u2062 back their involvement, possibly to\u2064 avoid\u2064 alienating consumers. Business entities \u200dfocusing on \u200dLGBTQ+ audiences, like\u2062 Tim Bennett\u2019s Tribury and gender-neutral clothing businesses, report decreases in \u2062client engagement and sales. Additionally, even LGBTQ+ advocacy groups like The Trevor \u200cProject have experienced a dip in corporate\u200c donations.<\/p>\n<p>The narrative suggests\u200d this rollback \u200dis part of a broader backlash\u200d against <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/rubio-rips-mlb-commish-for-leagues-china-cuba-ties\/\" title=\"Rubio Rips MLB Commish for League\u2019s China, Cuba Ties\">corporate virtue signaling<\/a> and political correctness, \u2063driven by\u2064 consumer resistance. Stephen Soukup, an\u200b author and expert on corporate activism, describes this trend \u2063as a \u200ccorrective response to \u200dyears of \u200dcompanies prioritizing political activism in \u2064their business practices, pressured\u200b by entities like the Human Rights Campaign.\u2062 The article frames these developments as a kind of corporate awakening spurred by economic realities and a changing social climate regarding activism and corporate involvement in political and cultural debates.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<header> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.westernjournal.com\/commentary\/\">  Commentary <\/a>   <span> <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.westernjournal.com\/author\/washingtonstand\/\">  <\/a> <\/p>\n<p> <span>  &nbsp;By <a href=\"https:\/\/www.westernjournal.com\/author\/washingtonstand\/%20\"><span>Suzanne Bowdey, The Washington Stand<\/span><\/a> <\/span> <span>  &nbsp;June 30, 2024 at 6:30am <\/span> <\/span>  <\/header>\n<section>\n<p>It&rsquo;s been a long time since Americans could sit back and actually enjoy the month of June. It was always an insufferable four weeks, breathing in the rainbow-saturated air that fell heaviest across our favorite sports, stores, shows, and social media. But the most remarkable thing about this year&rsquo;s &ldquo;Pride Month&rdquo; may be just how unremarkable it was.<\/p>\n<p>Sure, there were still parades, over-the-top political pronouncements, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.westernjournal.com\/town-refuses-fly-thin-blue-line-flag-slain-trooper-pulls-insulting-move-pride-flag-instead\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">colorful flags<\/a> billowing from too many government buildings, but the characteristic dread and fatigue from &ldquo;pride&rdquo; is gone &mdash; replaced by a quiet confidence that maybe, just maybe, we&rsquo;ve been heard.<\/p>\n<p>For the conservatives in the movement fighting this battle the longest, 2024 didn&rsquo;t just feel different. It was different. Heading into these final days of June, the biggest story across the mainstream media isn&rsquo;t who&rsquo;s celebrating &ldquo;pride,&rdquo; but where did it go?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/pride-target-lgbtq-0d0ade0c3ba9766884a9ed7ad92f31fe\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Associated Press<\/a>,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/nbc-out\/out-life-and-style\/lgbtq-pride-month-kicks-bias-fueled-pushback-rcna155502\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NBC News<\/a>,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/today-explained-newsletter\/355782\/pride-corporations-lgbtq-rainbow-profit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Vox<\/a>, and others have talked to countless experts, who all have the same thing to say: Executives are too worried about rocking the consumer boat.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;They&rsquo;ve been rattled,&rdquo; Drexel University Marketing Professor Daniel Korschun said of CEOs and other industry heads according to Vox. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s been a definite scaling back in both big and small ways,&rdquo; Joanna Schwartz, another professor at Georgia College &amp; State University, agreed. &ldquo;I had expected some brand caution, but this year seems [to be] a near full-scale retreat.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>For people whose livelihoods are actually tied to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.westernjournal.com\/developing-head-lgbt-dems-busted-graphic-alleged-grooming-video-bad-cant-show\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">LGBT activism<\/a> that June represents, &ldquo;bad&rdquo; doesn&rsquo;t begin to describe the year they&rsquo;re having. For Tim Bennett, co-founder of a firm called Tribury that specializes in reaching gay- and trans audiences, business has been a bust.<\/p>\n<p>A lot fewer clients are &ldquo;reaching out for &lsquo;Pride Month&rsquo; collaborations,&rdquo; Bennett admitted to Vox. &ldquo;In speaking with my peers,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;most of us are experiencing the same pullback or wait-and-see approach.&rdquo; Brand sponsorships are especially low.<\/p>\n<p>Rob Smith, who sells gender-neutral clothing, told the AP that he&rsquo;s seen a 25 percent drop in the number of stores carrying his line just over the last several months. That jives with what Alysse Dalessandro has experienced as an LGBT content creator. She went from 35 clients who hired her as a model for their &ldquo;Pride Month&rdquo; campaigns in 2022 to nine in 2023 &mdash; and just five this year.<\/p>\n<p>Even The Trevor Project, an extreme trans-affirming youth nonprofit, conceded to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marketingbrew.com\/stories\/2024\/06\/13\/corporate-pride-is-quieter-this-year-why-that-matters?mbcid=35817807.284625&amp;mid=51ac71edfaca300608650c64ee70ce88&amp;utm_campaign=mkb&amp;utm_medium=newsletter&amp;utm_source=morning_brew\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Marketing Brew<\/a> that it&rsquo;s seen &ldquo;a decline in corporate giving in the last couple of years.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<div id=\"firefly-poll-container\">\n<p>Is the &lsquo;pride&rsquo; movement fizzling out?<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Maybe this is just a &ldquo;natural progression,&rdquo; some have tried to spin it. If &ldquo;transgender and queer people are regarded as part of the norm, there&rsquo;s no point in making a big statement,&rdquo; Barbara Kahn, of the University of Pennsylvania&rsquo;s Wharton School, said.<\/p>\n<p>But in a country where corporate America is routinely blackmailed by LGBT pressure groups, any hint of moderating that message would be seen as betrayal. <a href=\"https:\/\/washingtonstand.com\/podcast\/ep-109-corporate-pride-with-stephen-soukup\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Stephen Soukup<\/a>, an expert in woke capital, who&rsquo;s tracked the progression of corporate activism for decades, pointed out that for the last 15 years, businesses have tried &ldquo;very hard to please one specific [activist] group, the Human Rights Campaign, which is an LGBTQ interest group.&nbsp;And every year, the Human Rights Campaign puts out its Corporate Equality Index &mdash; and every year, corporations are expected to do different types of things &hellip; in order to receive a 100 percent rating.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Lately, that&rsquo;s included everything from offering health care coverage for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.westernjournal.com\/emails-show-biden-admin-quietly-tried-remove-age-limits-trans-surgery-gave-infuriating-rationale\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/in-blowout-vote-alabama-senate-makes-hormone-therapy-surgery-for-trans-kids-a-felony-protect-kids\/\" title=\"In Blowout Vote, Alabama Senate Makes Hormone Therapy, Surgery For Trans Kids A Felony: \u2018Protect Kids\u2019\">gender reassignment surgery<\/a><\/a> to giving a certain amount of dollars and time to LGBT advocacy. If <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hrc.org\/resources\/corporate-equality-index\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">HRC<\/a> doesn&rsquo;t like the level of support they receive from a business, then, as &ldquo;Outstanding&rdquo; podcast host Joseph Backholm pointed out, they&rsquo;re &ldquo;going to try to destroy your reputation and make it hard for you to do business &hellip; So the companies feel an obligation.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Frankly, Joseph argued, &ldquo;I see this as a kind of extortion, where unless you do the things the [activists] want you to do, they are going to affirmatively try to harm you. Because in the marketplace, of course, your reputation is a big part of what your brand is.&rdquo; He compared it to a gangster showing up at a store, &ldquo;tapping their nightstick on their palms saying, &lsquo;You know, it&rsquo;s a great business you have here. It&rsquo;d be terrible if something happened to it.&rsquo;&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>The difference now is, American consumers have managed to collectively hurt brands&rsquo; bottom lines more than HRC&rsquo;s ostracization ever could. After <a href=\"https:\/\/www.westernjournal.com\/bud-lights-dylan-mulvaney-fiasco-disaster-going-taught-college-business-classes\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Dylan Mulvaney&rsquo;s beer cans<\/a> and Target&rsquo;s &ldquo;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.westernjournal.com\/big-american-retailer-releases-disturbing-new-female-swimsuit-extra-crotch-coverage-tuck-friendly\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">tuck-friendly<\/a>&rdquo; swimwear, the backlash was so explosive and so sustained that companies had no choice but to recalibrate. These were billion-dollar mistakes that sent plenty of boardrooms into desperate PR tailspins &mdash; and everyone else on a year-long soul search.<\/p>\n<p>This whole grassroots sea change that&rsquo;s taken hold in sports, business, and other industries has been an astounding thing for longtime conservatives to witness, especially those like Soukup, who&rsquo;ve been fighting the corporate beast virtually alone for the better part of two decades.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s definitely been a retreat,&rdquo; Soukup said. &ldquo;When I sat down to write the book &lsquo;The Dictatorship of Woke Capitol&rsquo; four years ago this summer, I was pretty pessimistic. I didn&rsquo;t think that there was a whole lot we could do to push back against ESG, to push back against the broader stakeholder movement, to push back against all of this politicization of American corporations. &hellip; Even when the book came out, the following spring, I did interview after interview [and] I was asked, &lsquo;What do you think is going to happen?&rsquo; I was still pretty dour. I [was] still pretty pessimistic about what our prospects were to get &hellip; capital markets back to neutral.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Now, he looks around at this nationwide movement to roll back LGBT activism and can hardly believe it. &ldquo;Over the past three years, there&rsquo;s been really an explosion in the pushback. And there are a lot of people who&rsquo;ve been involved in this, a lot of people who deserve a lot of credit for this.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>It was almost like a great awakening for everyday Americans, who finally got fed up and realized the amount of power they wield.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve seen a lot of people say, &lsquo;You know what? This is not right. This is not the way that American capitalism is supposed to function. This is not the way American democracy is supposed to function. And it&rsquo;s important for us to get this right, because if we don&rsquo;t, then we lose everything.&rsquo; &hellip; I&rsquo;m so much more optimistic now than I was three or four years ago about how effective we can be in halting this ideological, political takeover of business and capital markets,&rdquo; Soukup said.<\/p>\n<p><em>This <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/sen-loeffler-fires-back-after-ossoff-accuses-her-of-campaigning-with-kkk-member\/\" title=\"Sen. Loeffler Fires Back After Ossoff Accuses Her of Campaigning with KKK Member\">article appeared originally<\/a> on <a href=\"https:\/\/washingtonstand.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Washington Stand<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"author-info-45743\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.westernjournal.com\/author\/washingtonstand\/\">  <\/a> <\/p>\n<div>\n<p><label for=\"more-info-tab-radio-45743\">More<span> Biographical Information<\/span><\/label><label for=\"posts-tab-radio-45743\">Recent<span> Posts<\/span><\/label><label for=\"contact-tab-radio-45743\" onclick=\"if( typeof grecaptcha=='undefined' ) { let cap_s=document.createElement( 'script' ); cap_s.src='https:\/\/www.google.com\/recaptcha\/api.js?render=6LeJFcsUAAAAAPsIEqvB1EebWbZfqRUe6ebMpGy7'; document.body.appendChild( cap_s ); }\">Contact<\/label><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>  The Washington Stand is Family Research Council&rsquo;s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Commentary by Suzanne Bowdey, The Washington Stand, June 30, 2024. For years, June was unbearable, overwhelmed by pervasive rainbow themes in sports, stores, shows, and social media. Now, Americans can finally enjoy the month again<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2286011,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.westernjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Pride-flag-laying-on-the-beach.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[5331,33351,32993],"class_list":["post-2286010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-lgbtq","tag-lgbtq-community","tag-pride-month"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.westernjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Pride-flag-laying-on-the-beach.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2286010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2286010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2286010\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2286011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2286010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2286010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2286010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}