Want to walk on the wild side?

Then take a hike up Yosemite’s popular Mist Trail along the Merced River toward Nevada Falls.

Along the way you will approach Vernal Falls.

Expect to get wet  from the water spray from water from this year’s melting snowpack well into July.

That means you’ll have plenty of opportunities to catch arching rainbows throughout the day.

Earlier this month, there were also plenty of rainbows a bit further below Vernal Falls in Yosemite Valley proper.

The valley rainbows weren’t multicolored colors made by light striking water droplets.

They were Pride flags.

The Pride flags were part of an event marking Pride month.

It was the third year for a Pride event in Yosemite Valley.

Naturally, this triggered a roar in the hollow bowels of the Internet that makes the deafening sound of Yosemite Falls at full throttle seem like a whisper in comparison.

Contrary to those hyperventilating as they pound keyboards to upload their wit and wisdom to social media, this was not an invasion.

There are 1,380 people who live in Yosemite based on the 2020 census. Most are adults.

If you believe there aren’t any gays living in Yosemite, you’ll likely believe drag queens are a modern-day invention of the Pride movement.

Blame Shakespeare. There are a number of scholars that trace the roots of what today one calls “dressing in drag” back to the Bard’s use of men dressed as women to portray characters on the Elizabethan stage.

Drag queens, by the way, have a tendency to wear more clothes than a woman wears on the deck of an Antarctica cruise in the dead of winter.

That is why those on the Internet that referenced “drag queens are taking over Yosemite” might want to dial it down a bit.

They were prompted to go a bit bananas when they apparently saw postings of Pattie Gonia — an environmentalist who’s a drag queen.

He was the one and only “drag queen” gracing Yosemite Valley for the June 8 event.

Gonia for had a long red wig and wore a version of a ranger uniform.

Above the waist it was pretty typical.

Below the waist it was a mini-skirt in the appropriate Forest Service colors.

There was the prerequisite lipstick, eyelashes, fingernail polish, and Pride sweatbands on each wrist.

Gonia was wearing high-heel black-leather boots plus waving a Pride flag.

Given what some Yosemite visitors — who judging by their behavior aren’t gay — don’t wear, Gonia was almost dressed prim.

That said, the boots were highly inappropriate if he was to hike up the Four Mile Trail that President Obama did in 2016.

Gonia aside, basically everyone else was dressed in every day clothing you’d see rangers, workers and most visitors wear in Yosemite.

Yes, they had a few signs as well as rainbow flags and rainbow umbrellas.

But if this was an “in-your-face” Pride event, clearly those promising to boycott Yosemite — please do, by the way, as it leaves more room for straight and gay Yosemite enthusiasts to enjoy the park’s 1,169 square miles — have never seen the San Francisco version.

The Yosemite Pride event was downright Victorian and mellow.

Who cares, by the way, if a park ranger, concession worker, or park visitors is gay?

It’s nothing new.

And quite frankly during 50 plus trips to Yosemite, I have yet to come across a park ranger that wasn’t nothing but professional. That goes for the concession workers too.

As for parks visitors, that’s another story. My beef with some of them have never been sparked by a gay agenda. Instead, it was callous disregard for nature and feeling entitled to annoy other hikers by blasting music along trails.

Unless Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, who shared a video of the Yosemite event with his 2.3 million Twitter followers by stating “now even our national parks are hosting drag queens for Pride month” has seen something highly in appropriate when visiting Yosemite, then he’s just fanning the flames.

This is not to say “militant straight” — for want of a better word — have concerned the market on flame fanning.

The “militant gay” aren’t without their Charlie Kirks.

Back in 1988 while I was working for the Press-Tribune in Roseville, then Sacramento Mayor Anne Rudin was the target of protests because police in that city had cited gay couples for having sex in public.

It triggered a major backlash led by local leaders of Act Up — an activist group started in the 1980s to address the AIDS crisis.

A little context might be in order.

The couples cited were having sex in an area of a neighborhood known as “The Avenues” where a greenbelt ran along the river directly across from homes. Those cited were having sex in cars — and in the open — that were in clear view of homes of which many that had large picture windows,

The police were called by homeowners that didn’t appreciate the fact if they opened their drapes that they – as well as their kids – would be able to see people having sex.

A week or so, after the protests, I was going through a clip file on water issues and pulled a story that had appeared in the Sacramento Bee a year earlier.

When I flipped it over to read the jump, right next to it were the Metro news clips.

It included a short item about several couples — that were named because they were over the age of 18 — cited for sex int the same location. The names showed they were straight couples.

Like an idiot, I thought it was a teachable moment of sorts, so I penned a column.

I refenced the news clipping and the recent citations issued to  gays for having sex in public.

I suggested the issue perhaps wasn’t the police discriminating against gays having sex in public as it was the police citing people for having sex in public regardless of their orientation.

You thought I had burned a Pride flag, judging by the reaction.

Not only was The Press-Tribune inundated with rather obscene phone calls from people saying they were with Act Up, but they also sent courtesy subscriptions to gay pornographic magazines to the newspaper.

I was slammed as a bigot for simply pointing out the police were citing both gays and straight for having sex in public which meant they were not discriminating against gays.

You certainly don’t have to go back to 1988  to find examples of “gay militancy” run amok just like you don’t have to with “straight militancy” run amok.

Given it was aimed at me, I can attest to it without doing so in the third person.

I can’t attest to what it is like to be on the receiving end of “straight militancy” that is doing just as much undermining efforts to foster a civilization that has standards but at the same time strives to be all-inclusive.

 It is a balancing act that requires people not to go off the deep end on either extreme side.

What I can also attest to is that over the years there’s no doubt I’ve been protected by police, firefighters and service members as well as helped by health care professionals, retail and service sector workers, and bought products built and assembled by those who are gay as well as those who are straight.

The bottom line with all of us should be this: We shouldn’t care if a park ranger is gay and straight.

The jobs we do and how we interact with others in society is not sexuality-centric.

People who think otherwise are shocked to find out there  are gays living and working in Yosemite.

And — horror of horrors — they had a low-key Pride events in June for the past three years.

Given enough prodding, you might be able to convince them that gays hell-bent on taking over national parks are the ones that created the rainbow along the Mist Trail to indoctrinate impressionable young people.

This column is the opinion of editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Bulletin or 209 Multimedia. He can be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com

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