Here we are, almost halfway through June. Are you feeling proud? How could you not, given all the opportunities to celebrate Ramadan for the leather speedo set? Why, these days you can’t swing a glitter-stuffed unicorn without hitting a Sister of Perpetual Perversion.

Of course, Pride Month is bound to cause friction in a nation whose majority is still at least nominally Christian. Bud Light has been learning a related lesson the hard way. Target too. And a lot of normal types seem to feel emboldened to not play along.

While the media, corporations, and the Biden administration are solemnly observing Big Twerking’s high holy days, most people find the idea of taking pride in who or what you get freaky with strange, and a little repulsive. And anyway, there is no more fashionable or catered-to minority group in America during the rest of the calendar year. June is beginning to creak under the weight of all the pride floats and rainbow flags. In nature, rainbows are special because we see them so infrequently.

So it’s not too shocking to learn that Pride flags are becoming targets of vandalism – although USA Today seems to be feeling weakly for its fainting couch.

In the past week alone, Pride flags have been stolen, slashed, or burned in at least five states, including California, Utah, Arizona, Nebraska, and Pennsylvania. That’s on top of similar incidents in California and New York in May, including a man that defecated on a pride flag in Manhattan.

Defecating on a Pride Flag? In Manhattan? Were there no police cars handy?

The thefts and vandalism come as online extremists have been spreading a new hashtag in recent weeks that encourages followers to damage, destroy or steal Pride flags wherever they see them, said Sarah Moore, an anti-LGBTQ+ extremism analyst for the Anti-Defamation League and the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.

Is it me, or does USA Today seem a little more equanimous when these things happen to American flags? Or Catholic churches? Or statues of Columbus? Or …

“They are advocating for a destroy-the-Pride-flag challenge, or they call them capture-the-flag challenges, where they advocate for their followers to go out in really creative ways and capture and deface or set fire to Pride flags from private residences and businesses across the country,” said Moore.

Police in Nebraska are investigating the burning of a gay Pride flag as a hate crime in the latest of a rash of recent attacks on the LGBTQ+ community believed to be driven in part by online challenges.

That’s so juvenile. There are far more sophisticated forms of dissent. For example, men dressing as nuns and simulating gay sex acts – that’s really clever and might even get you invited to baseball games.

Another really smart way to protest is to fill school libraries with your propaganda, or have a drag queen story hour. Nothing gets people’s attention like a large stubbly guy in a cocktail dress reading “Billy’s First Nipple Clamps” to a room full of first graders.

Flag-burning/stealing is inherently stupid. Unless, again, it’s an American flag. Then it’s protected speech, or something. Besides, us right-wingers got bigger fish to fry (rainbow trout? – Oh, like you wouldn’t have gone there if you were in my place!)

We’re using federalism [boo!] to keep the Pride Parades on the pre-approved routes.

For the first time in its 40-year history, the Human Rights Campaign on Tuesday declared a “state of emergency” for LGBTQ+ Americans amid an increase in legislation targeting their rights.

Sheesh, drama queens.