A crowd at Modesto's City Council erupted into laughter when Don Grundmann, the co-organizer of a Straight Pride event planned for that California city in late August, slipped while arguing to the assembled chamber and councilmen.
“We're a totally peaceful racist group,” proclaimed Grundmann, defending his cause and inspiring a facepalm from one councilwoman and gales of laughter and cheers from the crowd.
SFGate reports: ‘Although he quickly tried to recant the “racist” portion of his sentence, the chambers were already laughing and cheering so loudly he couldn't be heard. One of the Modesto city councilmembers can be seen laughing so hard, she fully turns away from her microphone.'
The Straight Pride movement is a dog whistle to white supremacists and, at least in the case of the event in Boston, the organizers have direct links to white supremacist organizations.
Last week we reported that Matthew Mason, the gay son of Mylinda Mason, the other co-organizer of the event, was speaking out in hopes of getting the event shut down. Mason was at the City Council meeting as well.
Said Mason to SFGate of his mother: “I have personally heard her use hateful, harmful rhetoric when describing the LGBTQ+ community and non-Christian religious communities. Don Grundmann is a radical right-wing fascist from the Bay Area who is attempting to use Modesto as a launching ground for his political and cultural campaign of hate.”
Organizers have reportedly filed an application to use the city's Mancini Bowl for a rally and may also be planning a parade around the August 24 event.
According to the Modesto Bee, Grundmann has a long history of hate: ‘Don Grundmann, 67, founded the National Straight Pride Coalition and its California chapter about four months ago, the latest in a series of groups he has formed over the years, including Citizens Against Perversion. … According to its website, the coalition is protecting traditional gender roles, Christianity, heterosexuality, Western Civilization, and the contributions of whites to Western Civilization from the malevolence of the homosexual movement. …Grundmann said in a July 27 interview that he hopes the coalition grows nationwide and influences the 2020 election. “We're going to change the cultural tide and make it, such things as gender fluidity and transgender, we're going to associate them with what they are: sick and evil ideas, and also infanticide and abortion. We going to go the whole gamut. It's OK to be a man. It's OK to be a woman.”‘
