Upcoming Straight Pride rally has Modesto denizens on edge
Debbie Soro was already upset about a Straight Pride demonstration coming to Modesto this month that the organizers say will celebrate Caucasians, Christianity, heterosexuality and nationalism.
Now she’s really worried about what the event planned for Aug. 24 could ignite after three mass shootings in the past two weeks — including one in El Paso, Texas, where the shooter complained about a “Hispanic invasion” in a manifesto rife with white nationalism talking points. Modesto is a majority minority city where 39% of the residents are Latino. The demonstration’s organizer even publicly invited the Proud Boys, a farright group, to attend.
“I am really worried that if they are granted a permit (by the city) that it is going to be violent,” said Soro, interim president of MoPride, an LGBTQ advocacy group for Stanislaus County. Modesto city staffers are expected to decide soon whether to issue a permit for the Aug. 24 demonstration at Modesto’s Graceada
Park.
Soro and others in this politically divided part of the Central Valley are wrestling with how to respond to the event. Straight Pride opponents want to take a stand against racist, anti-LGBTQ speech in their hometown. But in doing so, do they risk calling more attention than deserved to a 4monthold fringe group that has only a few dozen members? Soro herself is uncertain. Officially, MoPride is neither endorsing nor condemning a counterprotest that is being organized. But personally, Soro hopes people will avoid a direct confrontation. If that showdown were to turn violent, the Straight Pride demonstrators could get even more publicity.
“The more attention the community gives to this group, the more they remain a focus of the media,” Soro said.
Her dilemma reflects “a question we’ve grappled with that last few years,” said Keegan Hankes, interim research director at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups in the United States.
Generally, Hankes said, “you want to avoid a direct confrontation” when holding a counterdemonstration, “as opposed to giving more oxygen to a potentially toxic situation.” He suggested that opponents rally public officials to condemn the event and ensure local law enforcement takes the potential threat seriously.
“You want to make sure the people who are peacefully counter-protesting are not put in harm’s way,” Hankes said. “There’s always that possibility. It only takes one unstable or ideologically motivated person to create a tragedy.”
Don Grundmann can’t understand what the fuss is about. The 67yearold San Jose chiropractor founded the California Straight Pride Coalition this year in response to “a progression of things that were happening in the nation.” He blamed “the sodomites” — a term he uses to describe the LGBTQ community — for much of the degradation of Christian values that he said are the foundation of the country.
Railing on gays isn’t new turf for Grundmann, who has spent half a lifetime finding new ways to malign the LGBTQ community, including forming an organization called Citizens Against Perversion. He’s run for office at least a few dozen times — so many that he can’t remember. Last year he ran for U.S. Senate, telling nonpartisan Ballotpedia that his top priority was to “ban the transgender mutilation of children.” He got 15,125 votes.
Yet even the local chapter of the Proud Boys dissed his invitation, saying in an email to the Modesto Bee that “California Straight Pride Coalition used the Proud Boys identity without consent” and that they do not plan to be there.
Grundmann bristled at his group being called “fringe,” though he admits that the last time he checked there were only 38 people on his organization’s Facebook group. When he protested the Drag Queen Story Time at the JFK Library in Vallejo in June, only four people joined him. Though he originally estimated that 500 people would attend the Modesto event, now he says he has no idea how many will show up.
“So now it is fringe to believe in Christian values?” Grundmann said. “Suddenly white people are inherently evil. We’re not the racebaiters here. We’re the antiracists.”
That one will be hard to stomach for people who read on the group’s website that it wants to celebrate “the Divine Design of the following foundational principles of life.” In convoluted language, Grundmann includes among his principles “Caucasians, the biological majority of the historical developers and founders of Western Civilization.”
To hate speech tracker Hankes, “that’s going to attract white nationalists.”
And that’s what worries many around Modesto. One of the city’s largest employers, E. & J. Gallo Wineries, which rarely jumps into local controversies, issued a statement that said “we do not support groups that advocate divisiveness or express hatred or hostility toward anyone in our community.” Rep. Josh Harder, the firstterm Democrat who represents the region, denounced the event on The Chronicle’s “It’s All Political” podcast, saying that “just because you can say something doesn’t mean you should.”
Given the event’s connections to racism, Harder said, “after what we’ve seen last weekend in El Paso, that should cause huge concern across our community.”
But few have a perspective on the event like Matthew Mason. His biological mother is Kristi Ah You, a Modesto City Council member who has vehemently opposed the event. His adoptive mother is Mylinda Mason, one of the event’s organizers and, Grundmann said, one of the main reasons it is being held in Modesto “where she has a base of support.” Matthew and Mylinda Mason have been estranged for several years, since he came out as gay man.
When he first heard of the event, Matthew Mason ignored it. But after it blew up on social media, he decided to speak out against it. He remembered how his adoptive mother would take him, as a teenager, to protest outside LGBTQ high school proms in the East Bay.
Mylinda Mason told NBC News that “I do not hate my son, I do not like my son, I do not love my son, I adore my son — and I want my son in heaven ultimately with me one day. And so I will remain firm on standing what I believe are biblical family values.”
On Wednesday, Matthew Mason organized a vigil at Modesto City Hall, hoping to get city staff to deny the permit.
“I would have really appreciated it if someone had stood up to Mylinda on my behalf,” Matthew Mason said. He isn’t sure what he will do if the city approves the event, but knows he will do something.
“They’re trying to use Modesto as seeding ground in the Central Valley,” he said. “I say we cut this weed off before it grows.”