World Pride is here. More rainbow images decorate the Sydney landscape than possibly appear across the skies globally each year. This is evidence of the overwhelming success of the long march of the LGBTQ agenda through our cultural institutions.
Even for those outside of Sydney, there is no escape. Everyone is pressured to celebrate Pride along with Australia's national broadcaster, the ABC, plus television network SBS, and the worlds of Apple, Microsoft and Google whose online stores presently offer kids and adults alike a new litany of LGBTQ apps to discover and download throughout World Pride fortnight.
I recall my own involvement as a gay activist in Gay Pride Marches in London in the late 80s. These marches were more like public protests than the "fleshfests" they are today.
Pride back then was symbolised not by any rainbow but by the pink triangle, the Nazi concentration camp badge which was initially intended as a badge of shame and was later reclaimed to symbolise a pride of all things queer.
How did such a turnaround in social attitudes happen? How did a major world city arrive at hosting not an afternoon or even a weekend even, but a fortnight of celebration for a lifestyle which at the turn of the 20th century would have had you imprisoned in the Western world?
Who would have guessed that today, at the start of the 21st century, you could possibly be imprisoned for failing to worship at the altar of the rainbow-hued golden calf which falsely states that sexual attraction is immutable and that a person's gender make-up is changeable.
I believe that the unredeemed rainbow now rules over our cities and our children because many Christians have lost their faith in the promise and the application of the first rainbow.
Confidence in the life-giving Gospel and in God's unquestionable ability to transform every soul through his unconditional love have gradually been exchanged for a more insipid form of the Good News which focusses more on social justice than on God's justice.
Rather than embrace humility, many believe that God exists to fit in with their agenda, and not vice-versa. This Pride-full slippery slope is backed up by the recent decision by the Church of England's General Synod to allow clergy to preside at blessings of same-sex unions.
As difficult as it is for some to digest, World Pride and annual Pride Month have gone from normalising what have always been declared as sinful relations between consenting adults to the sexualisation of children, endorsing drag queen shows in public libraries, through to a slow poisoning of minors' minds and hearts using Safe Schools propaganda.
Having said this, we must always remember that sin is what people do, not who they are.
Even concerned lesbians and gays are ignored when they expose grooming tactics employed by LGBTQ+ ideologues. LGB Alliances globally reject the draconian anti-conversion practice legislation which federal and state governments worldwide now enforce to the detriment of those who request such positive life-changing treatment, legislation which at its core attacks women and harms children.
Which cultural leaders are listening to the fresh charges against gender ideology being made by Jamie Reed, case manager at The Washington University Transgender Center?
Reed has spoken of "a thousand distressed young people"entering through the doors of one of the USA's hundred or so transgender centres where she worked for almost four years.
"The girls who came to us had many comorbidities: depression, anxiety, ADHD, eating disorders, obesity... we are permanently harming the vulnerablein our care," she declared, calling the hospital's actions "morally and medically appalling." The same gross negligence has been reported by whistleblowers in the recently published book by Hannah Barnes, Time to Think, which gives the inside story of the collapse of the NHS's Tavistock Gender Service for Children.
Streets away from the pomp and perversion of World Pride in downtown Sydney, five paediatricians at The Children's Hospital at Westmead in Sydney spoke out courageously two years ago about their frustration getting gender-fixated minors to face issues such as parental conflict, abuse, maltreatment, depression, and undiagnosed autism or psychosis.
They said, "Lost were our efforts to highlight the many different pathways in which gender variation could be expressed, to explain potential adverse effects of medical treatment, to explore issues pertaining to future fertility and child rearing, and to highlight the importance of ongoing psychotherapy."
At least Britain, Sweden, and Finland are challenging demands made by trans-philic clinicians to irrevocably damage the health of ill-informed minors on request.
Is the overall message of World Pride truly an international treasure which Australia should be celebrating - or is it an attempt to further veil inner trauma?
The thousands of us who previously lived and celebrated Pride, who then rejected this lifestyle and detoured into insightful therapy to face our comorbidities head on, today experience profound benefits offered from the ultimate rejection of pride, namely the humble crucifixion of Christ.
We know first-hand that, beneath the layers of glitz, glamour and the vanity of Pride, there are many souls in desperate search of a fuller life and of the unconditional love promised along with the first-ever rainbow.
If we believe in true inclusivity, equality, and a sustainable end to discrimination across society, then we need a new dose of global humility which can address inner trauma. We cannot, indeed must not, ignore the deeper needs of our neighbours, especially the young and those indoctrinated by LGBTQ ideology.
As has happened previously in history, it will be the responsibility of true believers in Christ's redeeming power who will be expected to take up this uncomfortable stance.