As “Pride Month” thankfully draws to a close, we can fully reckon with how ridiculously sexualized displays have become an integral part of its celebration.

Videos and pictures of crossdressers, men in bondage gear, and all-around weirdos — usually with children either close by or in some instances actively participating in the “festivities” — pervaded social media.

This particular event (promoted by a Democratic politician no less!) perfectly encapsulates everything perverse that has become largely normalized in the name of LGBT “pride”:

LGBT activists’ efforts to expose children to their ideology have become so persistent and so gratuitous that they almost seem to dare normal people: “What are you going to do about it?”

Conservatives should answer by using the levers of state power to hold LGBT sex pests under the same standards of decency that we apply to heterosexual deviants.

As my colleague Joy Pullmann pointed out earlier this month, “Why do gay people get to walk around in banana hammocks, butt cheeks waggling, with their naked nipples bared right in front of children while they talk about how much they love children, when anyone else doing that without the protective rainbow shield would rightfully get arrested or a visit from Child Protective Services? That’s not equality. It’s subjugation.”

Several states have already implemented laws to prohibit minors from attending overtly sexual performances like drag shows. That’s a good start, but states should also enforce existing laws regulating public sexual behavior, such as indecent exposure laws. Extending these laws — and the punishments for breaking them — to encompass drag shows and “pride” events would go a long way toward cracking down on adults exposing themselves to children (and other adults) under the guise of “pride.”

Grown men who participate in striptease-esque performances with kids in attendance or go out in public in BDSM gear in full view of minors — regardless of whether their parents took them there or not — should be treated as the predators they are.

We rightly condemn and prosecute a man who flashes kids at a public playground, but our leaders shy away from administering justice when very similar incidents happen at a “pride” parade — in front of thousands of witnesses.

Conservative state and local governments must demonstrate a zero-tolerance policy for this kind of behavior. Therefore, issuing fines or canceling the offending event will likely not suffice. The most nefarious offenders need to be arrested to send a clear message — our society will not permit the sexual corruption of minors, and if you break that very basic rule, there will be severe consequences.

Likewise, parents who take their kids to these events, knowing that they are far from family friendly, should be treated in the same manner as parents who show their kids pornography. Instead of persecuting parents who oppose their children’s desire to take puberty blockers or undergo irreversible mutilation surgery, Child Protective Services should live up to its name and actually protect kids from parents who would push radical gender ideology on their own children.

On this issue, the societal common good trumps parental consent. The state has a vested interest in preventing kids from being exposed to obscene sexual situations or material. A society that does not shield minors from warped and often predatory views of sexuality will reap a generation of dysfunctional neurotics. We’re already seeing the fruits of that crop with the explosion of young people who engage in violent fetishes or delve into ever-stranger faux sexualities.

Ignoring the problem and hoping it will fizzle out on its own won’t make it go away. Jokes on X won’t embarrass them into crawling back to the fringes of the internet. Very civil discourse on the proper place of sexuality in the public sphere won’t fix this. Only state power will.