A “Straight Pride” parade is slated to be held in Boston on August 31, according to its organizers, who posted a map of the route (above). Many on social media this week laughed it off, while many others expressed anger and outrage.
Some of the organizers reportedly have ties and histories that should cause Boston authorities and residents concern.
“The event is a front for a far-right group founded by notorious right-wing brawler Kyle ‘Based Stickman’ Chapman,” writes Will Sommer at The Daily Beast.
Last year a California news outlet reported: “White Nationalist Kyle ‘Based Stickman’ Chapman Arrested for Felony Assault with a Deadly Weapon.” That article noted Chapman has “a violent history,” and a “judge barred him from possessing weapons of any type.”
Meanwhile, Straight Pride organizer Mark Sahady “isn’t just a particularly aggrieved straight dude,” the Daily Beast notes. “Instead, he has a long history participating in controversial right-wing events around Boston as an organizer for Resist Marxism, a group Chapman founded at the height of the fame he earned attacking left-wing anti-fascist activists with his eponymous ‘stick.'”
Sommer reports that “Sahady has endorsed the far-right ‘helicopter’ meme, which calls for liberals to be thrown from helicopters as in Augusto Pinochet’s Chile.”
Resist Marxism has a history of using “anti-Semitic slurs,” Sommer writes. “At least one Resist Marxism event had security provided by Patriot Front, a white-nationalist hate group.”
The group organizing the Straight Pride parade is called Super Happy Fun America.
“Straight people are an oppressed majority. We will fight for the right of straights everywhere to express pride in themselves without fear of judgement and hate. The day will come when straights will finally be included as equals among all of the other orientations,” says John Hugo, President of Super Happy Fun America on the group’s website. “Strength is our diversity!”