As broadcaster James May comes under fire on X for saying Pride risks being authoritarian by displaying “Too Much Bunting”, I have noticed Pride ratcheting up its presence in my local area.
The Tesco Express convenience store about five minutes’ walk from my North Lancashire home is displaying a large board festooned with the Pride colours at the entrance: “Standing Proud Together. We support the LGBTQ+ community and charities all year round, creating a safe space for everyone, every day.”
There was no such board at the store last year but the Tesco superstore in Carnforth, Cumbria, where I used to shop regularly did display one.
The Westmorland Gazette quoted my letter to Tesco HQ in a news story:
I am writing to raise concerns about the prominent sign promoting the Pride movement which I saw today at the entrance to the Tesco store in Carnforth. I am a regular customer and Clubcard holder.
Why is Tesco promoting a controversial neo-Marxist ideological cum political movement at this store? Would the company have shown a sign promoting Brexit or Remain during the 2016 referendum?
If the reason for promoting Pride is because Tesco wishes to commend the work done by LGBT charities, that surely raises the question why the store does not show prominent signs with a Christian or Islamic symbol commending the charitable works done in the name of these world religions?
As a result of what I saw today, I intend to transfer my custom to Aldi. This is sad for me because the staff at the Carnforth store are unusually friendly and efficient.
Tesco did not answer the specific points I tried to raise. A spokesperson responded: “Everyone’s welcome at Tesco. We support LGBTQ+ equality and accept people without exception. We’re proud to be a part of Pride again this year and will continue to strive to ensure everyone feels welcome, every day.”
It is little inconvenience to me (and better exercise) to walk further to the Co-op convenience store which is not displaying a Pride sign. But what would I do if all the food stores were displaying Pride signs?
I suspect I would not be the only Christian locally to come to the conclusion that a Pride-free food outlet would be needed, serving all customers. But would local Christians be allowed to launch such a venture? The motivation for the business would be difficult to hide. Those of us behind the venture would almost certainly think it wrong not to come clean about our reasons. Is it not likely under these circumstances that we would encounter obstruction from the local authority?
Evangelical Christian campaigners Voice for Justice U.K. (VfJ) this week published a report on how LGBT ideology is marginalising orthodox Christians, which is all the more relevant for being published during ‘Pride month’.
The VfJ survey of 1,562 U.K. Christians about their experiences of intolerance or discrimination pointed out: “While there should be no hierarchy in the list of protected characteristics (under the Equality Act 2010), this appears to be contradicted by the reality. It appears that there is a hierarchy of protected characteristics, with all things LGBT+ at the top and ethnicity slightly below that.”
The VfJ press release quoted Nick Fletcher, Conservative MP (now parliamentary candidate) for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme (the Don Valley in the 2019 General Election):
Christianity is the cornerstone for so many of the values we take for granted. If it were not for Christianity our tolerance, our diversity, freedom of conscience and love for our neighbour would become a thing of the past.
This report needs to be circulated widely among those working in human resources, those responsible for education, as well as employers, church leaders, civil servants and those responsible for policy making.
We all need to wake up to the attack on Christianity in our society, before it turns into something even more sinister. This report is a vital step in sounding the alarm.
Fletcher is defending a majority of just over 3,000 from 2019 in his ‘Red Wall’ seat in South Yorkshire with a Reform candidate standing, so unfortunately his prophetic Christian voice may be lost to Parliament on July 4th.
The Pride march through Britain’s institutions, public services and businesses appears at this point to be unstoppable.
Julian Mann, a former Church of England vicar, is an Evangelical journalist based in Lancashire.
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Those proclaiming to save the planet are the ones destroying nature the most. Always the way with socialists and their divine faith in authority.
I agree. I’ve commented for a while that often what is trumpeted as ‘environmentally friendly’ is often environmentally harmful. Say that to a climate zealot though and you can see them mentally sticking their fingers in their ears.
It’s worse their entire brain explodes and they just accuse the bird munching critic of being Hitler.
They destroy ecology on land. The Bird Choppers mangle some 500 birds p.a. per turbine it is estimated. Oceanic impact will the same. Ecology being destroyed, fauna disturbed and killed. All to save Gaia from the fictictious plant food-causes climate-theology. We as a society, are both stupid and corrupt.
Not to mention what the very large blocks of concrete that anchors them are doing to the land in terms of water drainage. As I’ve mentioned here before, part of a Lancashire village flooded a few years ago (it never had before). It was initially blamed on “global warming” until they discovered that the wind farm on the hill above had changed the water course, diverting it from channeling into the river on one side of the hill to channeling down a straight road and into the village on the other side.
I actually think most people are confused, distracted and highly trusting rather than stupid and corrupt.
No, they are simply stupid. Look how many took Death Jabs, it takes a heck of a level of stupidity to do that.
Perhaps someone should ask His Hypocritical Majesty of Windsor about the destruction of marine mammals by the windmills he is making a fortune out of, courtesy of British taxpayers.
Yet another outstanding article. Thank you.
‘Fifty years ago, environmentalists would have raised hell about a thousand dead whales and dolphins. Now they are part of the cover-up.’
Why?
Follow the money.
China pours money into lobbying via organisations like The Peoples Forum, a source of funding for many left of centre, including environmental, organisations.
That is why China’s fishing fleet plunders the world’s oceans without any of the protests once seen against, for example, Japanese whaling ships.
“[China] says its distant-water fishing fleet numbers roughly 2,600,” Ian Urbina, an investigative reporter and member of the High Seas Initiative Leadership Council at The Aspen Institute, pointed out in a Yale School of the Environment report.
“But other research, such as this study by the Overseas Development Institute, puts this number closer to 17,000,” he said in 2020.
Why this matters: In 2022, the East Asia Forum reported that “Chinese fishing fleets have trespassed into the waters of over 90 countries and depleted fish stocks.”
Two tier policing of the world’s oceans…..
In 100 years time, if there are still humans around? will they look back and say what a good idea it was to cover the surface of the planet with windmills and solar panels, or will they look back and rue the madness that lead to this ludicrous folly that very nearly wrecked the planet and killed many of it’s plants and animals?
As they negotiate their way round the huge junkyards of scrapped EVs, Windmills and Solar Panels that we failed to re-cycle will they say oh well never mind it had to be done to save the planet or will they wonder if there was something funny in the water that sent us all mad enough to engage in this planet wrecking folly?
The planet wrecking folly option.
Wall-E?
Ruling the planet, eh sorry I mean saving it, means Dolphins Whales Fish Birds Bats and any other creature that gets in the way may become casualties of war——The war on YOU?
You go back a few decades and it was all about the whales. They would give Norway and Japan a hard time. And you could understand it given their intelligence and the remarkable nature and complexity of their communication. Satan doesn’t care for whales and dolphins at all. He dislikes their frankness and carefree nature and he wants the seas depopulated except for monsters just like the land.
I wonder if the first peak has something to do with the exploration and seismic testing prior to the first windmills being put up?
Thanks Chris for keeping on the case and us informed.