The old arguments for recognizing the LGBTQ community above other communities by flying the Pride flag don’t pack quite the punch they used to. Some people — other minorities, and especially religious communities — are pushing back and making the simple argument that taking their sensibilities into account about the Pride flag isn’t “hate” or discrimination.
It’s the right to disagree based on well-established religious and cultural beliefs.
The city of Hamtramck, Mich., is a Muslim-dominated community of 27,000 surrounded by Detroit. The Census Bureau says that 40% of residents are immigrants. The all-Muslim city council held a vote on Wednesday evening about flying the Pride flag on government property. Mind you, the Pride flag can still be flown by businesses and private residences.
Mayor Amer Ghalib said, “We serve everybody equally with no discrimination but without favoritism,” he said. This attitude was reflected in the unanimous council vote to display only five flags, including the American flag, the Michigan flag, and one representing the native countries of immigrant residents.
In protest, a woman speaking during the public comment portion of the Hamtramck City Council meeting kissed a woman standing next to her Tuesday night.
“You guys are welcome,” council member Nayeem Choudhury said. “(But) why do you have to have the flag shown on government property to be represented? You’re already represented. We already know who you are.”
Some members of the all-Muslim council said the pride flag clashes with the beliefs of some members of their faith. Businesses and residents aren’t prohibited from displaying a pride flag on their own property.
Flying the Pride flag is not about “acceptance.” It’s about a desire to be recognized. If the LGBTQ community wants to be recognized, they have plenty of places to do so in Hamtramck. The overt symbolism of flying a Pride flag from city hall or any other flagpole on public property promotes division, not unity.
And it’s not just the Pride flag that’s banned from public property. Religious, ethnic, racial, and political flags are also banned (Sorry, Black Lives Matter). “This is America. We don’t fly heterosexual flags,” Stephanie Butler told the council. “This doesn’t mean people are not free to exist.”
Some in the LGBTQ community are trying to gin up fear that this measure is only the beginning of a campaign against gay people.
“We’re a theater that we do a lot of LGBTQ programming,” said Planet Ant Theatre managing director Andy Reid. “We’re a safe space in the city for a lot of queer artists. And this is alarming, it’s escalating.”
What’s “alarming”? What’s “escalating”? It’s a flag, for crying out loud. Stop getting hysterical that you can’t fly it on public property.
And they aren’t the only ones getting hysterical.
Last week, the Human Rights Campaign officially declared a state of emergency for LGBTQ+ people in the United States for the first time in its more than 40-year history, citing “an unprecedented and dangerous spike in anti-LGBTQ+ legislative assaults sweeping state houses this year.”
The civil rights group released a report this month that detailed more than 75 anti-LGBTQ+ bills signed into law in 2023, doubling the total last year.
Almost all of those bills dealt with teaching about LGBTQ in schools — a controversial and fraught issue that deals with age-appropriate reading material. The HRC and other radical groups refuse to recognize the role of parents in raising their children, preferring to allow the state to make decisions that should be the purview of parents.
If someone wants to play a Pride flag on their own property, that’s as much a protected right as someone who wants to fly a “Don’t Tread on Me” flag. But anyone who can’t see the difference between private and public property needs a remedial course in civics.
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