‘Straight Pride’ Organizer Jeered For Defending His ‘Peaceful Racist’ Group

The organizer of a controversial “straight pride” parade drew jeers at a city council meeting in Modesto, California, this week after a slip of the tongue made his defense of the right-wing event moot.

Don Grundmann accidentally called the National Straight Pride Coalition a “totally peaceful racist group” while speaking before city council members on Wednesday. An area chiropractor who has unsuccessfully run for the U.S. Senate, Grundmann criticized a vigil that had been organized in hopes of convincing the council to reject his group’s permit to host the “straight pride” event, slated to take place in Graceada Park on Aug. 24.

“You attacked us as racists,” Grundmann said, reportedly directing his speech at City Council member Kristi Ah You, who has been vocal in her opposition to his group’s event. “We haven’t done anything. We’re a totally peaceful racist group.”

Grundmann’s gaffe drew laughter and applause as seen in the below video, which first appeared on SFGate.

The National Straight Pride Coalition’s event application is still being considered, Thomas Reeves, the community and media relations officer for Modesto, told USA Today. If the event permit is approved, it would be a “recognition of the free speech rights enshrined in the First Amendment” rather than an endorsement of its message, City Manager Joe Lopez added. 

Among the attendees at Wednesday’s city council meeting was Matthew Mason, whose adoptive and estranged mother, Mylinda, is working with Grundmann on the “straight pride” plans.

Mason, who is gay, has said he believes the event could spark violence.

“This isn’t ‘straight pride.’ This is hate pride,” he told Fox 40 last week. “Dog whistling to white supremacy … This is not a positive message and this community is committed to positivity, to love, to inclusion and to diversity.”

Flyers for the Stanislaus County Straight Pride Parade/Event first began circulating on social media last month. It’s being promoted as a “celebration” of “heterosexuality,” as well as “Western civilization, Christianity,” and “babies ― born and unborn.”

The National Straight Pride Coalition’s racist, anti-LGBTQ agenda is even more apparent on its website, where it defends “Caucasians” as being “the biological majority of the historical developers and founders of Western Civilization.”