It’s hard to walk ten feet in Manhattan without noticing another rainbow-themed ad or store front. “Pride Month” has just concluded, and corporate America is determined to prove its moral virtuousness—either that, or they’re willing to do whatever it takes to make a buck.

The array of advertisements reflect the diverse modes of pro-LGBT rhetoric.

Take TD Bank’s nod at expressive individualism at their ATMs with “Be You. Be Free. Be Forever Proud” placed next to a rainbow circle. And what could make me feel more myself than withdrawing money from my account? Then there are the more family-oriented ads of Visit Philly, inviting potential visitors to “Let Wedding Bells Ring,” as they proudly present a photo of a lesbian couple holding hands in front of the Liberty Bell.

Restaurants and food suppliers have been getting crafty with their rainbow-colored foods. Take Just Salad’s “Big Gay Garden Salad,” complete with vegetables that represent every color of the rainbow. Or Shake Shack’s strawberry shake mixed with lemonade, and topped with whipped cream and rainbow sprinkles. Not only can you slurp your shake with pride, but you can wash it all down with a gulp of self-righteousness—one dollar of what you paid for that shake is going to help the Trevor Project.

As rainbow capitalism reaches new heights, the more political arm of the LGBT Movement has become increasingly critical.

Many accuse these major corporations of insincerity. Of course they “love pride” now that same-sex “marriages” are dispensed by the government and pop culture features more openly same-sex-attracted stars. But where were they during the years when coming out was still stigmatized?

Others express concern regarding the lack of attention given to the injustices that LGBT people still face, namely homelessness of LGBT youth and violence against transgender people. The optimistic picture these corporations paint whitewashes (or better, rainbow-washes) the continuous struggle toward full equality.

The most interesting critique is that rainbow capitalism negates the founding “mission” of the LGBT movement. “Non-binary” journalist Da’Shaun Harrison laments that the rainbow-themed ads, the booking of celebrities and politicians for pre-parade events, and the police presence at the parades are “the antithesis to what the month is supposed to commemorate.”

Harrison continues: “At its core, Pride is intended to disrupt cisheteronormativity; it is a response to police violence and an intentional act of rebellion.” Many queer activists would agree with this statement, claiming that pro-LGBT rhetoric post-Obergefell takes a step backward.

Peter Tatchell writes that when he first got involved in the London Gay Liberation Front in the Seventies, its goals were focused on “social transformation, rather than assimilation and equality within the status quo…We sought to overturn straight supremacism, sexual guilt and traditional gender roles.”

Tatchell sees the trajectory of the movement as headed toward an ideal that mimcs the tamed, happily-ever-after lifestyle lived by most heterosexual couples—which he claims contradicts the efforts of most early queer activists:

Pride is now capitalism with a pink hue. It has become monetized: we pay to march, the city authorities extort vast charges from the Pride organizers and we are encouraged to buy rainbow-branded merchandise to express our sexual and gender identity… Increasingly, LGBT+ culture has lost its critical edge. We have been mainstreamed, which on one level is great, but mainstreamed on heterosexual terms. Many of us seem to aspire to little more than an LGBT+ version of straight family life.”

❧

There’s something important in these “traditionalist” critiques of rainbow capitalism. On one hand, traditional activists took up the noble agenda of challenging the stifling, utterly bourgeois socially-constructed ideals that emerged during the post-war period.

I use the term traditional only half-jokingly. The Stonewall Riots and subsequent “gay liberation” efforts were fueled by a primeval desire to transgress the bounds of nature, as sodomy and cross-dressing go against the order of creation. Pre-modern deviants enjoyed their perversions precisely for this reason. Sex between two men was not a means to “express one’s feelings” or to be “true to his identity.” Instead, it was a Dionysian attempt to mess with nature, which for many proved to be a wicked good time.

And yet, the presence of deviants also testifies to the fact that Someone imbued nature with an inherent order.

Inevitably, the modernization of sexual deviancy has entangled itself with atheistic ideologies of power and liberation. As much as the attempt to transgress ideals of heteronormativity may hearken to earlier Dionysian attempts by deviants to subvert the order of nature, it does so in the name of constructing a new “order,” one based on the “right” to individual self-expression and, ultimately, power.

As much as these “traditionalist” queer activists decry the capitalistic turn in the LGBT movement, they would do well to look more closely at the philosophical implications of the movement’s history. Their attempt to overturn the social constructs they deemed to be vapid and confining was rooted in the same ideals—albeit repackaged using different symbolism and terminology—as the ones that fueled their so-called enemies. Thus the “revolution” didn’t present a reversal, but instead an intensification of the individualistic bourgeois norms they fought against.

The Italian political philosopher Augusto Del Noce attributes this ironic outcome to the confused premises of the sexual revolution. These young revolutionaries fell into a “tragic misunderstanding”: they conflated the social standards and structures of the day with “tradition” (referring to the spiritual and metaphysical truths handed down to them), failing to recognize that the transcendent ideals of Christianity were not the same as those of the consumer capitalist culture they aimed to dismantle.

And so by attacking both the flawed cultural ideals they were raised with and the metaphysical truths of Christianity, “instead of overthrowing bourgeois society, [they] swept away the last traditional constraints that held back its expansion and finally made everything, even the human body, ‘an object of trade.’ “

Can the images of the human person, relationships, and the body, put on display during the events of “Pride Month,” really claim to convey an ideal greater than the person as object for use and consumption? In order to find a more fulfilling image of same-sex intimacy, LGBT activists ought to stretch their historical (and philosophical) imaginations past the golden age of the Stonewall Riots. We might be surprised to find some more nuanced and imaginative insights if we risk looking beyond secular modern narratives of same-sex attraction.

Photo credit: Sandor Szmutko/Shutterstock.com