A Connecticut town council voted to ban the LGBTQ+ pride flag in government buildings almost immediately after coming under Republican control.
The Enfield Town Council voted in a meeting Monday to ban all flags from flying at government buildings save for the United States, Connecticut state, and military flags. The new policy, which went through with a vote of 6-5, replaces a 2022 policy that allowed the rainbow flag to fly during Pride Month in June.
While some the council members pushing the policy claimed to do so as a way to remain “neutral,” Councilor At-Large Gina Cekala, who voted against the measure, accused them of directly targeting the LGBTQ+ community and Pride flag.
“I think the real reason is you don’t want that Pride flag up on this town hall,” she said, “which is absolutely disgusting."
Tom Tyler, the interim town attorney, claimed at one point that if the the Pride flag was allowed to be flown, “ISIS could come in and want to display one, the IRA…basically anybody. You’d have to be content neutral and let everybody." He then went off-topic to accuse schools of trying to indoctrinate students with “transgender ideology.”
The decision came as a betrayal to many of the town’s residents, including Brandon Jewell of PFLAG Enfield, who noted that two of the Republicans voting to ban flags previously voted in favor of the 2022 policy that allowed the Pride displays.
read more: https://www.advocate.com/news/connecticut-pride-flag-ban-isis
How is this different than a city saying “if we allow you to fly a flag for the Steelers, what’s next, a Nazi German flag?” Any reasonable person can see that there is a clear line between something like a flag that supports an innocuous mainstream idea and a flag representing a terrorist organization, it’s ridiculous and clearly motivated by bigotry. Cities and towns have been displaying rainbows in various forms for years during pride month and I haven’t seen any inch of progression towards right-wing Islamic terror groups being supported also.
The post is about flagging in public buildings. I can’t imagine public buildings setting up a flag for the steelers and not doing so for any other team.
I expect the issue is, that you can’t expect reason especially when it’s in up to the public. People and organisations will find ways to exploit this.