The end of the rainbow?

I don't shop at Target much. I mainly use them to recycle my soda stream canisters. But I stopped in this week to take their pride temperature. In years past, I've been greeted by modern family mannequins with two dads and a pig tailed plastic girl sporting a “Love Makes a Family” T-shirt. This June? It was stars and stripes as far as the eyes could see. Flags, family, and freedom were front and center. They sequestered the small rainbow display in the back of the store.

Target’s quiet retreat from Pride Month is part of a broader, measurable pattern: Pride seems to be on the decline. According to Axios, brands like Mastercard, Anheuser-Busch, Citi, and Deloitte have dropped their sponsorships of major Pride events in cities like New York and San Francisco. And this year, nearly 40% of surveyed executives say their companies are reducing or eliminating Pride marketing altogether—up from just 9% last year.

But you don't just see the shift in the corporate space. It's happening in media too. GLAAD’s “Where We Are on TV” 2023–2024 report clocked a decrease in LGBTQ characters on broadcast TV by 31%, and on cable by 45%. The number of LGBTQ series regulars in broadcast TV dropped from 70 to 39—a 44% decrease—marking the lowest figure since the 2017–2018 season. As I noted last month, even SNL is poking fun at the holes in the gay propaganda.

It’s manifesting in politics too. While numbers among Democrats and independents have remained stable, last month Gallup clocked Republican support for same-sex marriage at 41%, down 14 points from 2022.

This isn’t just populism—it’s the fruit of moral fatigue. Americans were told that gay marriage would affect no one but the adults involved. But it didn’t stop there because it was never designed to. It didn’t stop with two grooms and a florist nor an activist and a baker. It went on to erase mothers and fathers from birth certificates, manufacture motherless or fatherless children, to coerce speech, censor dissent, and punish faithful Christians in the public square.

Now, ten years post-Obergefell, many are realizing this wasn’t about lifestyle tolerance. It was about ideological dominance. And it seems ordinary Americans have had enough. You wouldn’t know it from the headlines, but a big chunk of Gen Z is rejecting the sexual revolution. In fact, they may be the most disillusioned-in-the-best-way-generation yet.

Polls show younger Americans are embracing traditional gender roles and marriage. They are hooking up less and rejecting porn. Influencers and media giants who critique woke policy like Jordan Peterson, Charlie Kirk, and Ben Shapiro are commanding millions of views and followers, particularly among young, right-leaning men.

This generation isn’t finding freedom in the rainbow. On the contrary, they've seen the confusion, brokenness, and irrationality that has accompanied Pride. Discontent is rising. But discontent alone is not enough. If we want to reach this generation, we must offer them something better.

Before we do, though, we must confront the hypocrisy in our own ranks.

We can’t lead the next generation out of the sexual chaos on the left while ignoring the moral failures on the right. The recent blowup surrounding Glenn Greenwald’s sex tapes—defended by many prominent conservatives because of his political alignment—is one example. Another is the pass granted to Elon Musk’s and conservative influencer Ashley St. Clair after her birth announcement. Young people hate hypocrisy. So let's give them consistency. Both in our punditry and in our personal lives.

To those wearying of the rainbow—especially Gen Z—we must offer something more beautiful. We must spotlight testimonies of those who refuse to be defined by their attractions. Return marriage to a place of cultural honor by admiring the beauty of weddings. Use social media platforms to demonstrate that lifelong marital love is possible. And speak repeatedly about our children as joys, not burdens. Against such forces, an inverted rainbow will crumble from within.

For the last 10 years, the rainbow train felt unstoppable. “You're on the wrong side of history,” we've been repeatedly scolded. But we were never on the wrong side of history. We were on the wrong side of the narrative. The true arc of history bends not toward affirmation, but toward biological, and thus biblical, truth. And truth, especially the kind that costs us something, is exactly what will set this generation free.

Those who trust in the Lord—and his good design for human relationships—will never be put to shame. Not then. Not now. Not ever.