[Image by Boris Štromar from Pixabay]

June is Pride Month, and here at the Minimise Project we’ve liked to mark it in the past by sharing details of LGBTQ pro-lifers. Pro-life people know what it is like to be in a minority, and pro-life LGBTQ people have it extra hard: they are a minority within a minority. This can be a difficult and lonely place to be, and we are always happy to do our small bit in June by increasing awareness of those members of the LGBTQ community who do not align with the pro-choice position that most other members of their community hold.

This year, though, my thoughts around Pride have been more general, because there has been genuine pushback against the LGBTQ community in general, and Pride in particular, in some countries. The political sands are shifting across the world, and small but significant changes have taken place, such as various USA-based companies not participating in Pride events around the world, including in Ireland. For some people, they may consider this as no bad thing: they think Pride has become more about corporatisation and virtue signalling than an actual commitment to equality. Whatever about those concerns, this year something new and unprecedented has happened: the Pride parade in Budapest, due to take place this weekend, was banned by the Hungarian police.

This news really threw me. I am not as vociferously, in principle, supportive of “free speech” the way many other pro-life people are. I’m very supportive of free speech in practice, but I’m not sure how I land on the “right” to say whatever you want – I’m basically agnostic on whether such a “right” exists. However, I know what it’s like to hold a politically unpopular view, and I know what it’s like to go out and march with others who hold that same unpopular view, to show that we’re here, we exist, we are part of this country and this world, and we have a perspective worth hearing. To think of participation in such events being banned, or relegated to a private, indoor space, supposedly so children would not be able to see or hear me, really made me blench.

I’d like to encourage pro-life people to take a few minutes to lay aside their preconceptions, and try just looking at this with new eyes. Imagine how you’d feel if people like you had been discriminated against, jailed, ignored, tortured, subjected to unsafe medical regimes, or generally ill-treated for most of human history. Imagine how wonderful it would feel to know that after such a long history of suffering, sufficient progress had been made for you to feel (reasonably) welcome and equal. That would be something to celebrate! You would want to mark that fact, with joy and gratitude, remembering all those who went before you for whom it would have been unthinkable to march openly in the streets. And now, after a few fleeting years, it’s slowly but surely being taken away. Free speech for you, but not for me. Pride and joy and celebration are for those who conform. Silence, shunning, hiding away are for you and others like you.

I don’t know about you, but it’s actually pretty easy for me to imagine how I’d feel – because this is how many pro-life people feel these days. I have lost count of the number of pro-life people who have told me they feel silenced, they feel ignored, they feel like the rest of the world wants us to crawl away and disappear. I feel that way too! It’s a really horrible feeling. And this means that the pro-life movement can actually have a lot of empathy for the LGBTQ community. 

You may not know any pro-life LGBTQ people, but you definitely know some LGBTQ people. It would be a wonderful gesture to reach out to them this week, if you haven’t already. Tell them you love and appreciate them. Tell them you empathise with them. Tell them you hate the idea of anyone’s right to free speech being threatened (assuming, of course, that that’s true!) so close to our own country. Even just a simple text saying “Hey, I heard about the crackdown on Pride in Budapest. Just wanted to ask if you’re OK! I know what it’s like to face political opposition or feel like everyone wishes you’d shut up and go away. So I just wanted to check in and say that I can empathise, just a tiny bit!”

In general, the LGBTQ community does not see the pro-life community as their allies. This is sad. Human equality and dignity is at the heart of the pro-life movement. Every person who believes in those values should be able to feel like they can be an ally to the LGBTQ community. This year, let’s try to make that happen.

Muireann