Historian and broadcaster Dr David Starkey has hit out at the “damaging” wide-scale promotion of LGBT issues during ‘Pride’ month, particularly for children.
Starkey, himself homosexual, had been invited on to GB News to give his views on a Derbyshire secondary school which had advertised a controversial ‘Pride Day’ celebrating LGBT identities.
The school had planned a ‘drag and rainbows’ non-uniform day in which children were encouraged to wear “something rainbow or colourful”, which could include “wearing a tutu, make-up, or painting their nails, to going all out in full-blown drag”. The school backed down after a backlash from parents.
‘New compulsory mainstream’
Fellow guest on the programme Jo Phillips, a journalist and former political adviser, suggested that Pride is a good thing because “it is celebrating everybody”.
But Dr Starkey quickly rebuffed this, saying: “It’s not. It’s celebrating a tiny fraction of the population which I belong to.” He said he was “fed up” of causes like ‘gay rights’ “being turned into a new compulsory mainstream”.
this aggressive and deliberate sexualisation of children is profoundly dangerous, profoundly damaging, and we are reaping terrible consequences.
Addressing the ‘plastering’ of LGBT Pride flags across shops and banks during the summer, he said: “This is the bizarre thing. We’ve decided that what was essentially 60s counter-culture is now mainstream and compulsory.
“We have this series of history months, of Pride days, of whatever, and it seems to me simply to be wrong”.
‘Profoundly troubling’
Phillips protested that the Pride celebrations were not compulsory at the Derbyshire school, but Starkey interjected: “If a school says ‘We’re going to have a Pride Day’, for children effectively it is.
“Can you imagine, if it had gone ahead, the one child who does not turn up with painted toenails or whatever it is.”
Arguing “parents should have a moral choice on this”, he pointed out that LGBT issues are now entrenched in the curriculum for children “at a surprisingly young age”. He noted that many parents “find this profoundly troubling, and in my view, rightly so”.
He concluded: “It does seem to me that this aggressive and deliberate sexualisation of children is profoundly dangerous, profoundly damaging, and we are reaping terrible consequences.”
Too much Pride
A recent survey in the US indicates that Starkey’s view on the promotion of Pride by corporations is backed by public opinion.
The polling by Rasmussen Reports revealed 48 per cent of those shopping at retail chain Target say businesses do too much to celebrate Pride Month, while just 17 per cent felt they did too little.
Target launched its Pride collection in May, offering more than 2,000 LGBT-themed products, including clothing, books, music and home furnishings, which include “gender fluid” mugs, “queer all year” calendars and books for children as young as two promoting radical gender ideology.
In addition, a third said they would be less likely to shop at Target again, while only a quarter said they would be more likely.
‘New religion’
Revd Dr Matthew Roberts of Trinity Church York, author of ‘Pride: Identity and the Worship of Self’, recently told The Christian Institute that Pride is fast becoming the UK’s new established religion.
Watch the full conversation below: