Cities across America are getting ready for this week’s July Fourth celebrations. Near my neighborhood, the Dallas suburb of Addison (with nineteen thousand residents) is expecting 500,000 people for its fireworks show. Cities from New York to Los Angeles are preparing for spectacular parades.

None are likely to resemble the parades with which June’s “Pride” month ended. A Washington Post headline calls last Sunday’s pride parade in New York City “one of [the] largest in [the] movement’s history.” Wikipedia lists thirty-six such parades across the country. 

Of course, LGBTQ activists do not limit their campaign to one month. A self-described “young transgender woman” writes in CNN that “if in June, cities, institutions and individuals can devote attention and resources to LGBTQ people, maybe one day, they can do so all year round.” 

A book that explains why we’re where we are 

The biblical prohibition of homosexual activity has been clearly understood by the Judeo-Christian tradition for more than thirty-five centuries. This moral position was the norm in American culture until recent years. (For example, Pew Research Center reports that in 2004, 60 percent of Americans opposed same-sex marriage; in 2019, 61 percent support it.) 

What explains the moral trajectory of our day? 

In Pagans & Christians in the City: Culture Wars from the Tiber to the Potomac, law professor Steven D. Smith writes that an ancient form of paganism is becoming orthodox today. 

He notes that religion in the Roman Empire was so intertwined with the state that “Rome was, in a sense, a kind of magnificent megachurch.” That’s because, to the Romans, this world is our home. They “typically did not imagine any higher good—anything like union with the gods—that transcended earthly flourishing.” They believed that sexual fulfillment was inherently good,…