The UFC’s Freedom 250 celebration on the White House lawn has come and gone and still the republic survives, contrary to President Donald Trump’s critics decrying the desecration of the “People’s House” by such a gauche spectacle.
I wonder if these critics felt similarly when President Joe Biden promoted a pride month festival in which the White House was festooned with pride flags and topless transitioners.
Unfortunately, that was just the tip of the “prideberg” during the Biden administration. The Functional Government Initiative has obtained Department of the Interior (DOI) communications regarding pride month in 2023.
DOI required all subagencies to each hold pride month events, issuing guidance including:
“Though there has been extraordinary progress to fully realize equity and inclusion, discrimination based solely on sexual orientation and gender identity remains persistent. Recent anti-trans violence and moves to limit human rights for transgender individuals are troubling signs that the fight for dignity and respect for the LGBTQI+ community continues.”
DOI kicked off the month itself with a rooftop “Progress Pride Flag” raising, at which Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland explained, “We fly the flag over the Stewart Lee Udall building during the month of June, because we know how much visibility is part of the movement for equality.”
Meanwhile, the Bureau of Reclamation busied itself working to reclaim the esteemed place trans Indians supposedly held in pre-colonial North America via a “Pride and Two-Spirit People” event of the following description:
“Long before colonization deemed them an abomination, non-binary/trans people were highly respected within many Indigenous Tribes across the Americas. Collectively referred to as two spirits, they were not only celebrated for their uniqueness but considered essential to ceremonies and Tribes’ very spiritualities. The keynote speaker Adrian Jawort, a journalist and member of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe, will talk about her life as an indigenous American who identifies as a two-spirit person.”
What?
There was more. The Fish and Wildlife Service hosted an event called “Pride in the Wild: The Art of Storytelling.” The Bureaus of Safety and Environmental Enforcement and Ocean Energy Management, along with the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, tapped a Human Rights Campaign speaker to explain how to censor themselves in the office.
U.S. Geological Survey employees learned about the “500 Queer Scientists,” as well as “field safety issues faced by LGBTQI+ scientists.” Do rocks get all judgy? These records make you wonder if they had time to work on the department’s statutory mission during the month.
To the nation’s embarrassment, there seems to have been online safety issues faced by DOI staff. The communication team decorated social media posts with rainbow flags and posted celebratory pride month messages.
As one would expect, not everybody in the audience was on Team Pride, and some people let them know it. Senior officials didn’t seem to have anticipated that, and emails and texts flew back and forth about monitoring replies that were “over the line.”
The content even elicited a sympathetic message to a staffer who was personally affected: “I saw the disgusting posts on IG. I’m so sorry to see them and to know that there are some ugly people who follow our posts. Happy Pride, please don’t let this crap damper a month of celebrations. Thanks for being you!”
President Trump’s fight night may not be to everyone’s taste, but then again, neither were all the forced pride events and we can be sure DOI in June 2026 is a heckuva lot more productive than it was in June 2023.
Roderick Law is the communications director for the Functional Government Initiative.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
