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‘Straight Pride’ Group Sent Hundreds to Capitol Hill Insurrection

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Just in case you didn’t already know what kind of people the “straight pride parade” organizers were, it’s now come out that they chartered multiple buses to bring hundreds of people to last week’s riot at the Capitol.

A Massachusetts woman who is a director of the anti-LGBTQ Super Happy Fun America, known for its “Straight Pride” march in Boston, says she helped the far right group organize busses to carry hundreds of Trump supporters to last Wednesday’s Capitol Hill insurrection that quickly turned violent and deadly.

“Sue Ianni said she doesn’t understand why those who attended Wednesday’s protest in Washington, D.C., that resulted in violent clashes inside the U.S. Capitol are being called ‘domestic terrorists,’” reports MetroWest Daily News. “Ianni organized 11 buses to ride down to D.C. for the protest. She is concerned she, and all Trump supporters, are targets of retribution.”

The number of busses seems very fluid, with AFP reporting Super Fun Happy America “chartered six buses carrying about 300 protesters for the demonstration in the US capital.”

The group has proudly been advertising their trip to D.C.

Five people, including a police officer, died, countless others were injured, and President Donald Trump is expected to be impeached for inciting insurrection this week as a result of the domestic terror attack.

“Ianni said she is one of the organization’s directors, and falsely described Super Happy Fun America as ‘a civil-rights organization that peacefully protests the leftist cabal taking over this country.’”

Super Happy Fun America’s leaders have described straight Americans as “an oppressed majority.” The Daily Beast last year reported one of the “straight pride” group’s leaders has been linked to a white-nationalist hate group, has been called a front for the far-right group Resist Marxism, and “has endorsed the far-right ‘helicopter’ meme, which calls for liberals to be thrown from helicopters as in Augusto Pinochet’s Chile.”

Meanwhile, Ianni is claiming Super Happy Fun America was merely “expressing our First Amendment rights to protest an illegal election,” and the thousands of pro-Trump extremists, many of whom illegally breached the walls of the Capitol, were “very moving, very inspiring,” and “what America is all about.”

Getty Images published this photo purportedly of Ianni at the Capitol on Wednesday.

Embed from Getty Images

Ianni refused to tell MetroWest if she was one of those who illegally breached the Capitol building.

Ianni says they will never stop fighting.

“We will fight tooth and nail,” she told AFP. “This isn’t over just if Biden gets inaugurated, if that happens. We’ll never stop fighting. And Trump will be our president for the next four years, no matter who they inaugurate.”

“The media is portraying us as a bunch of domestic terrorists,” Ianni told MetroWest, and “showing the same video clips over and over. What you’re not seeing is a bunch of people walking around. It’s our right to this government, and the Capitol police waved them in.”

Written by David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement. Image: Straight pride flag, via NCRM

California-Based Straight Pride Group Plans Another “Straight Pride Parade” For This Month

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Between accusations of white supremacy and condemnation from family members, the organizers of California’s Straight Pride Parade have faced widespread outrage.

We’ve already heard more than enough about the angry, discriminatory idiots planning a “Straight Pride Parade” for Boston on August 31. That group, Super Happy Fun America (yes, that’s their real name), most recently came under fire from multiple companies they’d listed on their website as “potential sponsors,” none of which wanted anything to do with them.

California’s more straightforwardly-named (pun intended) National Straight Pride Coalition are also planning a parade for the month of August. This one is planned to take place a week before the Boston Straight Pride Parade, on Saturday August 24 in Modesto, a city located about 90 minutes east of San Francisco.

While Super Happy Fun America comes off as either clueless or outright mocking in their site’s claim that “straight people are an oppressed majority,” their site largely has a positive tone, and is full of upbeat — yet, again, clueless — slogans like “We encourage everyone to embrace our community’s diverse history, culture, and identity regardless of sexual orientation.”

National Straight Pride Coalition dispense with this sort of rhetoric in favor of a fear-mongering manifesto which evokes both pro-life activists, with its background featuring pictures of babies and a huge opening banner that reads “Save The Next Generation Of Babies,” and the far right, as in its statement of the group’s purpose as “preventing the current and future generations of all races and colors from being destroyed by the inherent malevolence of the Homosexual Movement.”

Image via Modesto Progressive Democrats/Facebook

As the manifesto continues, we are told that “foundational principles of life” are “under unprecedented, sustained, and coordinated attack.” That list includes things like heterosexuality, the nuclear family, Christianity, nationalism (uh-oh), Western civilization (UH-OH), and… Caucasians.

If you read this manifesto as a barely-veiled appeal to the growing white supremacist movement in the United States, you’re far from alone. Indeed, one of the organizers’ own son has called it the same thing.

“Dog whistling to white supremacy, that is immediately inciting violence,” Matthew Mason told Sacramento’s Fox 40. “I am afraid of violence happening. I don’t want anyone in my community to be hurt.”

Mason, who is gay, is the son of Mylinda Mason, one of the main organizers of the National Straight Pride Coalition’s upcoming parade. And based on the group’s manifesto, he seems to have a point. On its list of “foundational principles of life” on its website is, as previously mentioned, Caucasians. Under that entry, the site reads: “the biological majority of the historical developers and founders of Western Civilization (This is a statement of fact with the consideration of Gal. 3:28 and Col. 3:11. Christ loves and values everyone).”

I suppose, since white people created the majority of western civilization, they should receive special privileges forever?

“It is again white Caucasians who did come to this country to start liberty and gave us the greatest Constitution in the world,” Mylinda Mason told Fox 40.

Just to add an outright ridiculous edge to this deeply troubling rhetoric, Modesto Straight Pride Parade organizer Don Grundmann made quite the gaffe when attempting to defend his organization at a Modesto City Council meeting last Wednesday. Accusing a council member of “pulling the race card,” Grundmann went on to say, “We’re a totally peaceful racist group.”

Of course, Grundmann claimed he’d only misspoken, bringing up his work with the activist group Whites Against Racism. He didn’t mention his activism in the 2008 campaign that managed to temporarily end marriage equality in California — but I’m sure we all could have guessed even if there weren’t pictures.

“This is the woman who raised me actively working against my rights as a human being, who I am as a person,” Matthew Mason told FOX40. He also told NBC News that the American history he was taught by his mother, who homeschooled him for Kindergarten through the 12th grade, was white supremacist in nature, and that “the genocide, slavery, and white nationalism that built [America]” were completely left out.

“This isn’t ‘straight pride.’ This is hate pride,” he told Fox 40.

After a contentious City Council meeting last Wednesday, the city of Modesto declined to make a decision about whether to issue a permit for the event. But they did release a statement, which reads: “We are exploring the ideas brought up by council and the residents, which may impact the timeline of making a decision. But nothing has come up that would lead us to believe that we could rule against the First Amendment.”

Whether or not they do end up approving the National Straight Pride Coalition’s permit request, it seems unlikely that we’ve heard the last of this particular group of far-right troublemakers.

Top Photo: Mylinda Mason, via screencap

Straight Pride Group Launches Attacks on Companies Refusing to Sponsor Its Offensive Parade

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The companies, listed on the group’s website as “potential sponsors,” are demanding to have their logos removed. And the “straight pride parade” people are very upset about it.

An organization insisting that straight people represent an oppressed and marginalized group are holding a “Straight Pride” parade on August 31 in Boston. The organization, Super Happy Fun America, is claiming that the 15 or so U.S. companies they chose to list as “potential sponsors” despite having received zero interest in sponsoring their parade, are now “corporations that hate the straight” for refusing to do so.

Super Happy Fun America (SHFA) has deemed that some of these companies, including Netflix, TripAdvisor, JP Morgan Chase, and Ben and Jerry’s, are “heterophobic” corporations or sent “heterophobic” responses – all because they don’t want to tarnish their corporate reputations by sponsoring what some have called a hate fest.

In a blog post Tuesday Super Happy Fun America wrote that “rather than show their support for equality and inclusivity, we received hateful and heterophobic emails, threats against our 1st amendment rights, and attempts to take down our website.”

“The responses from global corporations effectively demonstrate the serious need for our civil rights movement is needed now more than ever!” they claim, falsely. “We will not be intimidated by their threats against our happiness and fun. Straights are a legitimate sexual orientation and we demand the same rights as everyone else. The Straight Pride parade is enormously popular and we call on all freedom loving patriots to join us on August 31st. The door is always open for sponsorships from companies who recognize the value of our civil-rights movement, and we encourage others to get involved.”

The door is “always open,” it would seem because SHFA doesn’t seem to have any sponsors.

Among those refusing to sponsor the “straight pride” parade are ride-sharing company Lyft.

“Super Happy Fun America received a letter from Lyft labelled ‘Cease and Desist’ with a demand to ‘immediately remove the Lyft name, logo, and branding from your regrettable website,” SHFA writes. “It appears that Lyft is yet another heterophobic global corporation. We believe that there is nothing ‘regrettable’ about advocating for equal rights for straights as we celebrate our community’s diverse history, culture, and identity.”

Netflix is another target of SHFA.

“Netflix is a heterophobic company steeped in hatred and bigotry,” SHFA claims. “They not only rejected our offer but threatened us with litigation if we did not stop using their name and logo, which is perfectly legal for editorial or informational purposes,” SHFA claims.

Netflix labelled us bullies and declared that their legal department “is here, it’s queer, and it’s telling you to steer clear.”

Then we come to Trip Advisor. Perhaps taking a page from Netflix’s response, the legal eagles, “TripAdvisor’s letter stands out for its inclusion of songs that LGBTQ+ people have adopted as anthems,” Boston public radio station WBUR reports.

Here are a few amusing excerpts, with song titles bolded by WBUR:

I am writing on behalf of TripAdvisor LLC concerning Super Fun Happy America’s [sic] unauthorized use of TripAdvisor’s logo, as displayed on your website at superhappyfunamerica.com/2019/07/09/corporate-sponsors/. I’m Coming Out and saying this clearly: you are infringing upon TripAdvisor’s intellectual property rights. Further, your statement that you are “in negotiations” with TripAdvisor as a “potential sponsor” is completely false.

To be precise, your use of the TripAdvisor trademark and our Beautiful logo infringes TripAdvisor’s trademark and trade name rights. TripAdvisor’s trademarks are protected in many countries around the world and Over The Rainbow, including in the United States under Registration Nos. 2727627, 3171193, 4612678 and 4454774. We have become a well-known brand for our reviews of hotels, restaurants, experiences and even the occasional YMCA, but we weren’t Born This Way – we obtained that recognition through significant advertising and promotion since as early as 2000. As a result of the breadth of the services it provides and its widespread renown, TripAdvisor enjoys substantial rights in its mark and name.

Contrary to your claims, TripAdvisor is not “in negotiations” with your organization for sponsorship of its “Straight Pride Parade.” Similarly, we have not authorized you to use our name or logo in any way. You Need To Calm Down – you are not sponsored by, associated or affiliated with TripAdvisor in any way, and thus, your use of our marks could confuse the public as to an affiliation with TripAdvisor. These inaccurate statements, which I trust do not show your True Colors, infringe on TripAdvisor’s rights under the Lanham Act, and impinge upon our Freedom! to decide with what organizations we want to associate our brand. Have A Little Respect and remove those statements. TripAdvisor and I Will Survive without being associated with your event.

Despite claiming they have every right to use logos of corporation just because they’ve sent them an email, it appears BestBuy has been successful in getting theirs removed. It appears here but not here.

Written by David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement. Image: “Straight Pride Flag,” via Super Happy Fun America