The Final Line of Biden's 'Pride Month' Proclamation Accidentally Shows Just How Far the US Has Fallen
When President Joe Biden published his proclamation saluting “pride month” for 2023, he checked every box on the progressive agenda.
Gays? Naturally. Lesbians? Of course. Bisexuals, transgenders, “queer” and “intersex”? Check. Check. Check. And check.
All told, it’s 900-plus words of blather about Biden’s aims to ease the plight of the sexually disoriented population of the United States — but it’s the last line that says more than the White House ever intended.
At the end of the “Proclamation on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex Pride Month, 2023” on Wednesday, the president declares the month of June to be a time for all Americans to “recognize the achievements of the LGBTQI+ community, to celebrate the great diversity of the American people, and to wave their flags of pride high.”
The final line is:
“IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this thirty-first day of May, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty-three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-seventh.”
The “year of our Lord” phrasing evokes — and is meant to evoke — the religious beliefs that infused the country’s founding era. It has been part of presidential proclamations since George Washington’s day.
But the inclusion here isn’t an acknowledgment of the birth of Jesus, an event of such magnitude that human history is literally denoted by its relation to it — before Christ or “anno domini,” the Latin phrase for “year of our Lord.”
In the hands of the Biden White House, it’s a trite, throwaway nod to a throwaway past the leadership of the Democratic Party and its progressive supporters are intent on erasing, not honoring. Does any sane American think contemporary leftists believe themselves to be operating in the “year of our Lord”?
The fact that Biden’s topic of homosexuality and its spinoff behaviors is largely an affront to biblical Christianity — not to mention the dogma of the same Catholic faith the president publicly professes — makes his words even more hollow.
But in the context of the history of presidential proclamations, it shows just how far the country has fallen away from the public faith in God and its leaders’ reliance on that faith to steer the correct course.
The very first presidential proclamation was issued by Washington on Oct. 3. 1789, recommending a day of national thanks to God, “that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be … for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us …
“And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations, and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions … and, generally, to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.”
It concluded:
“Given under my hand, at the city of New York, the 3d day of October, in the year of our Lord 1789.”
Contrast the palpable piety in those words to Biden’s passive-aggressive paean to his fellow Americans based on their choice of sex partners.
“During Pride Month, we honor a movement that has grown stronger, more vibrant, and more inclusive with every passing year,” the statement declares. “Pride is a celebration of generations of LGBTQI+ people, who have fought bravely to live openly and authentically. And it is a reminder that we still have generational work to do to ensure that everyone enjoys the full promise of equity, dignity, protection, and freedom.”
It may be that Biden, the former proud colleague of Democratic segregationists in the Senate, means every word of that. It could also be that he’s pandering to a constituency that favors the Democratic Party and shoring up his political left in anticipation of running for re-election at a time when evidence of corruption in his family and in his own record is mounting even faster than his inflation is destroying Americans’ savings.
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Finally, it could simply mean that an increasingly senescent Biden is setting a witless hand hereunto whatever first lady Jill and the coterie actually running the country tell him to set his hand hereunto.
The private lives of American citizens are their private lives. Americans aren’t required to follow biblical teachings or accept traditional Christian concepts of sin, any more than they’re required to the screechings of the Quran (try reading it sometime without getting a headache).
But that doesn’t change what biblical teachings are, or how those Christian concepts of sin might apply.
The problem is, the whole concept behind the LGBTQI etc. etc. movement is that human beings decide what they are, not their Maker.
However much that might please Unitarian ministers or the woke Episcopalian hierarchy, it’s a foundational rejection of the idea that God creates humans as He deems fit.
The fact that such is belief is so prevalent is just one of the things that make it a good bet that the American ancestors who were around for Washington’s first proclamation wouldn’t even recognize what the country has become.
There are many, many ways the country is better now than then, of course: The 13th Amendment ending slavery, the 19th Amendment guaranteeing universal adult suffrage (and air conditioning and microwave ovens).
There are other ways that it’s worse, and Biden’s statement highlighted what might be the worst of them: The fact that a country that literally came into being for the cause of religious freedom has all but abandoned religious beliefs in the public square.
The fact that Biden chose to salute “pride month” at all was a personal and political choice that was his to make — or whatever nurse was on duty at the moment.
But the fact that he chose to describe it as taking place in the “year of our Lord” just highlighted how far the country has traveled between George Washington and Joe Biden.
No one doubted Washington meant what he said. No sane person thinks Joe Biden does.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
