Homophobe Horrified to Learn Fellow Runners Think He’s Celebrating Pride Month
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A local runner wearing a rainbow shirt this morning learned that passersby assumed he was celebrating Pride Month—a distressing shock for the longtime homophobe.
Frank Fitts, 39, said he grabbed the shirt, featuring the logo of the PBS television show Reading Rainbow, without thinking, on his way out the door for his run. Almost immediately, he said, passing walkers, runners, and cyclists reacted.
"The first time someone gave me a thumbs up and a smile, I figured he was just being friendly,” Fitts said. “Then it happened again, and again.”
“Finally, this gal with purple hair runs past me and yells, ‘Woo hoo, pride!’ and I put two and two together.”
“I was horrified,” he said, shuddering. “Disgusted.”
Pride Month, which occurs each June, commemorates the Stonewall Riots, a watershed moment in the gay rights movement sparked by a violent police raid of New York City’s Stonewall Inn in June 1969. As a White House proclamation on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Pride Month describes it, “Pride is both a jubilant communal celebration of visibility and a personal celebration of self-worth and dignity.”
The rainbow is widely acknowledged as a symbol of the LGBTQ+ community.
Fitts said that upon making the connection he considered removing his shirt, but didn’t.
“I’m pretty self-conscious about my body,” he said. “Plus it sickens me to think that some [epithet] might see my naked torso and get turned on.”
Fitts, a married insurance adjuster with two young children, stressed that he didn’t “have a problem with the gays,” as long as they “keep it in the bedroom.”
“I don’t see why they have to shove it in your face all the time,” said Fitts, referencing a recent trip to a supermarket where he saw two men holding hands. “It’s unnatural.”
“By the way,” Fitts said, “why don’t straight white males get a special month?”
