Some photos from an October 2025 visit to Frederick, Maryland that are relevant to our observance of Transgender Awareness Week…
Formerly Christian churches have been mostly converted over to Rainbow Flagism, e.g., a Lutheran church founded in 1738:
The United Church of Christ, founded in 1745:
Their principal flag:
The chamber of commerce folks have adopted the full trans-enhanced religoin:
The shops around town generally adhere to Rainbow-First Retail in which shoppers must pass by a sacred flag as they enter. Perhaps under the guidance of the above business organization, the rainbow flags at businesses nearly all have a “Protect Trans Kids” inscription within the Biden-style trans triangle:
We hit Frederick on the way back from a history tour of Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia and the Antietam battlefield from the War of Northern Aggression. Because we visited during the shutdown (October 3, 2025), it was a great lesson for the kids on how times changed. In the mid-19th century government workers had to come into work every day and toil in extreme temperatures in order to receive pay. In the 21st century, government workers are guaranteed to get paid while sitting at home and the taxpayers who must fund their paychecks are denied entry to various historical sites and museums.
The “ferry” part of Harper’s Ferry is now bridged for the convenience of trains and hikers. Harper’s Ferry is the HQ for the Appalachian Trail Conservancy and the town is rich in resources regarding the trail. As recently as 1970 only about 10 people per year hiked the entire trail. Today it is more than 1,000 per year.
The ironwork done in 1893 is still keeping the trains from falling into the river, 132 years later:
The machines that were so critical to Union success in the War of Northern Aggression continue to roll through Harper’s Ferry:
The “park store” in town is run by a private group and was therefore open. It was, apparently, women who did most of the fighting in the Civil War (there was no section for “men’s history” or “white history”):
Spotted in a local’s driveway and pointed out by our keen-eyed 10-year-old (don’t miss the “Punch More Nazis”):
Below is the closed visitor center for the Antietam battlefield. Just as education wasn’t “essential” during coronapanic, this educational facility isn’t “essential” during a shutdown (i.e., the workers get paid at 100 percent and the kids who show up and try to learn something get nothing).
Here’s a sobering reminder of our insignificance. Soldiers whose names are long-forgotten fought and died for control of Burnside’s Bridge. The Sycamore tree at the far end was there during the battle and it remains there today, 160 years later.
(The bridge cost $3,200 to build, purportedly equivalent to at most $100,000 today. Because we’re so much more efficient at doing stuff today, it cost only $1.7 million (pre-Biden dollars) to rehab in 2015-2017.)
The battlefield isn’t as dense in sculpture as Vicksburg or Gettysburg, but there are many beautiful pieces nonetheless. Examples:
We eventually made it back to Bethesda where the kids learned about the health benefits of marijuana, the importance of Black lives specifically (Korean restaurant door), and the evils of plastic straws (imagine telling a 1970s high schooler that one day marijuana would be considered “essential” and plastic straws would be considered tremendously harmful!).
Phil…
What is your problem with the “gays”? Do you really hate homosexuals? How many of your posts complain about the display of man-made rainbows?
I hope you do realize that the percentage of homosexuals is pretty constant across cultures and across times. Indeed, the percentage of gay men is surprisingly similar to the percentage of left-handed men. Perhaps you hate lefties, too? That’s been a problem throughout history. What is the Italtian word for left-handed? Sinistrorso. What is the French word for left-handed? Gauche.
BTW… Did you know that the same percentage holds true for male baldness and male colorblindness in addition to left-handedness and homosexuality? Is it okay to hate bald guys? What about color-blind people?
Getting back to homosexuality, do you truly believe that people “choose” to be gay? Do you think people choose to be lefties? Please step back and look at your own prejudices. Ask yourself why you’re so hung up on rainbows.
I live near Provincetown on Cape Cod. I’d wager that gays and lesbians represent the majority in Ptown. Considering your views of homosexuality you should probably avoid landing at Provincetown Airport. You might catch the gay bug.
Anon: South Florida probably isn’t the most logical choice of a place to live for someone who “hates homosexuals” (see, for example, https://nomadicboys.com/gay-saunas-in-miami/ ).
I’m not sure why you think that the original post has anything to do with actions taken by homosexuals whom you suggest are 10-15 percent of the population (that’s the left-handed percentage, according to our AI overlords). If only 10-15 percent of the population identifies as homosexual then the vast majority of rainbow flags are being displayed by heterosexuals. What’s interesting is not that a gay bar displays a rainbow flag, as may be seen in West Palm Beach, for example. Nor would be it interesting if a trans kid were to display a “protect trans kids” flag, as seen in Frederick, MD. What’s interesting is that a large group of heterosexuals, e.g., a church, city government, or chamber of commerce, decides that Rainbow Flagism is the primary or only social justice religion that they will promote. Helping the poor doesn’t get a flag at a church nor in front of shops. Black Lives Don’t Matter Anymore, based on the lack of BLM signage. Nobody in Frederick offered visible support for sheltering undocumented migrants despite the fact that a homosexual might have an iron rice bowl (federal government job) while an undocumented migrant might have no job, five children, and no right to work. The churches and merchants of Frederick are ready to support two married gay guys who earn $300,000 per year working for state and federal governments, but they display no sign of being willing to do anything for a zero-income migrant or a low-income justice-involved Black American.
See also https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2019/08/20/is-lgbtqia-the-most-popular-social-justice-cause-because-it-does-not-require-giving-money/ for an exploration of why Rainbow Flagism might be the preferred religion of formerly Christian churches, rather than Help the Poorism.
(For the churches that have converted to Rainbow Flagism what especially surprises me is that they continue to call themselves “Christian”. As far as I am aware, Jesus never urged his followers to help the 2SLGBTQQIA+, but he did urge them to help the poor. “Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” — Luke 12:33–34 (NIV). A parishioner at a Rainbow Flagism church can buy him/her/zir/theirself a brand-new BMW, even if the 3-year-old BMW is running perfectly, and consider him/her/zir/theirself virtuous because he/she/ze/they is more tolerate of homosexuals than the posited haters of homosexuals among Republicans.)
Phil seems to have gotten carried away with the pride flag photos this past year or two, it is a bit fatiguing on the old retinal cone cells. I wouldn’t call it “anti-gay” though. I agree that a lot the pride stuff is cis white privileged guilt. My own take is that I don’t care about other people’s sex lives, gay or straight or ?–it’s kinda gross, don’t ask, don’t tell, I don’t want to know, please cover your bedroom windows with those light blocking shades available at Wal*Mart. Note that Wikipedia has a bunch of pride flags too–are they anti-gay? Pride flags in the “historic” district in Provincetown:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provincetown%2C_Massachusetts#/media/File:Provincetown_Historic_District,_3.jpg
Provincetown was gay before gay was cool. Isn’t there a gay colony in Rhode Island too, or is that the whole state?
Ultimately, if God had made Adam and Steve, well none of us would have been around, right?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-LGBTQ_rhetoric#Homosexuality_as_ungodly
Eve: the posts and photos are here so that anthropology and sociology graduate students 100 years from now will have material to work from on what a typical American church or town looked like during the Pride Era. Pictures of Provincetown and the Castro in San Francisco aren’t useful because they aren’t indicative of an average American place.
Two of those church flags are not rainbow flags, but progressive pride flags. You might be surprised at what the colors and symbols mean. They should not be associated to a Christian church.
> Is it okay to hate bald guys?
Yes it is (“guys” though, The Fresh Prince might slap your ass if you hate on bald women). My white female neighbor is 30, still lives with her black stepfather who was “with” her white mother for a while, thought in error that I (age 58) was into her. She saw me and screamed down the street, “You’re bald!!!!!” I don’t scream epithets at her for being in a biracial family, because I’m not a racist, and it’s stupid to scream at neighbors.
I’m married, wouldn’t touch that grrl incel anyway, and my wife thinks I look like a short Bruce Willis. Which is another thing that is OK, hating on short guys. 6-6-6 on Tinder, e.g. Oh, and hating on incels is OK too, especially short bald ones. Why is progress on DEI so frustratingly incremental?
“I’m J-O-E to the C, hoe. Call me Joe C, got more game than Coleco. I’m a freak, hoe, call me sick. 3 foot 9 with a 10 foot dick. The ladies pick, I’m a crazy hick.” — Joseph Michael Calleja, “Devil without a Cause”