I’d normally call this “you get what you vote for,” but not all Muslims are as authoritarian and Puritanical as those on the city council of Hamtramck, Michigan. Actually, the Guardian story, while displaying the homophobia of a group of Muslim-Americans, also has me a bit conflicted, for the law they passed does impose a general ideological neutrality on the city, and I can’t say I disagree with that. Click to read:
Here are the facts:
In 2015, many liberal residents in Hamtramck, Michigan, celebrated as their city attracted international attention for becoming the first in the United States to elect a Muslim-majority city council.
They viewed the power shift and diversity as a symbolic but meaningful rebuke of the Islamophobic rhetoric that was a central theme of then Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign.
This week many of those same residents watched in dismay as a now fully Muslim and socially conservative city council passed legislation banning Pride flags from being flown on city property that had – like many others being flown around the country – been intended to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community.
Muslim residents packing city hall erupted in cheers after the council’s unanimous vote, and on Hamtramck’s social media pages, the taunting has been relentless: “Fagless City”, read one post, emphasized with emojis of a bicep flexing.
In a tense monologue before the vote, Councilmember Mohammed Hassan shouted his justification at LGBTQ+ supporters: “I’m working for the people, what the majority of the people like.”
Oy.
CNN says this about the resolution:
Hamtramck’s city council members voted unanimously Tuesday to approve the controversial resolution, which restricts the city from flying any “religious, ethnic, racial, political, or sexual orientation group flags” on public grounds, according to meeting minutes.
The resolution stipulates that along with the American flag, the city also flies flags “that represent the international character” of the area. It says that “each religious, ethnic, racial, political, or sexually oriented group is already represented by the country it belongs to.”
Thus national flags are permitted to be flown, along with the city flag (if there is one).
Now shouting “Fagless City” is clearly homophobia, and is reprehensible. And its source is clearly religion: the council appears to consist entirely of Muslim males, and the vote was unanimous. Liberals felt betrayed, as they were proud of having elected a city council made up of people of color, who then turned on them and dumped on gay people.
Back to the Guardian:
“There’s a sense of betrayal,” said the former Hamtramck mayor Karen Majewski, who is Polish American. “We supported you when you were threatened, and now our rights are threatened, and you’re the one doing the threatening.”
She’s referring to this:
But Majewski said the majority is now disrespecting the minority. She noted that a white, Christian-majority city council in 2005 created an ordinance to allow the Muslim call to prayer to be broadcast from the city’s mosques five times daily. It did so over objections of white city residents, and Majewski said she didn’t see the same reciprocity with roles reversed.
Well, the council hasn’t done anything to threaten gay rights yet (the absence of a flag is not a threat), but the Council blamed gays for this law!
Their talking points mirror those made elsewhere: some Hamtramck Muslims say they simply want to protect children, and gay people should “keep it in their home”.
But that sentiment is “an erasure of the queer community and an attempt to shove queer people back in the closet”, said Gracie Cadieux, a queer Hamtramck resident who is part of the Anti-Transphobic Action group.
Mayor Amer Ghalib, 43, who was elected in 2021 with 67% of the vote to become the nation’s first Yemeni American mayor, told the Guardian on Thursday he tries to govern fairly for everyone, but said LGBTQ+ supporters had stoked tension by “forcing their agendas on others”.
“There is an overreaction to the situation, and some people are not willing to accept the fact that they lost,” he said, referring to Majewski and recent elections that resulted in full control of the council by Muslim politicians.
I’m not sure what “agenda” was being forced on the council save civil rights that gays already enjoy. No other “agenda” is mentioned. But there’s is a backstory of divisiveness here.
On one level, the discord that has flared between Muslim and non-Muslim populations in recent years has its root in a culture clash that is unique to a partly liberal small US city now under conservative Muslim leadership, residents say. Last year, the council approved an ordinance allowing backyard animal sacrifices, shocking some non-Muslim residents even though animal sacrifice is protected under the first amendment in the US as a form of religious expression.
I’m a hard-line First Amendment person, but I don’t think that killing sentient mammals to propitiate one’s god is a valid form of religious expression. Do the goats get a choice? It’s okay, I think, to take peyote if that’s part of your religion, and has been for a while; and that’s what the courts have ruled. But my approbation stops at killing animals who don’t have a say in the process, and I don’t care if animal sacrifice is part of religious rites in some Muslim cultures.
Speaking of legalized substances, Hamtramck tried to ban marijuana use, too, but legalized weed had already passed as a state law, and so Hamtramck was too late:
When Michigan legalized marijuana, it gave municipalities a late 2020 deadline to enact a prohibition of dispensaries. Hamtramck council missed the deadline and a dispensary opened, drawing outrage from conservative Muslims who demanded city leadership shut it down. That ignited counterprotests from many liberal residents, and the council only relented when it became clear it had no legal recourse.
But here’s where my opinion about the homophobia evinced by the Muslim council gets a bit confused (my bolding):
The resolution, which also prohibits the display of flags with ethnic, racist and political views, comes at a time when LGBTQ+ rights are under assault worldwide. . . .
First, the ban is only for flags on city property, which constitute an official government statement. I am of course for total gay rights identical to normal civil rights, but putting pro-gay flags on city property is a political statement, much as you may disagree. If you allow that, then you allow all kinds of displays on city property that people might disagree with. What about putting up flags of Christian organizations, or the Confederate flag, or a display of the Ten Commandments? Surely you’d object to those, but free speech demands that if you allow one expression of political sentiments on city property, you must allow them all. (Yes, I know that some U.S. courts have allowed privately-funded displays of Ten Commandments on public property, often on grounds that it’s a “historical and not a religious” statement, but I think they’re dead wrong. Just read the Bible!)
And in fact the resolution could be interpreted, whatever its motivations, as mandating viewpoint neutrality. Again:
The resolution, which also prohibits the display of flags with ethnic, racist and political views, comes at a time when LGBTQ+ rights are under assault worldwide,
So, much as we may deplore the homophobia instantiated by this vote, the ban was extended to all flags expressing political and ideological views. It’s really no different from the institutional neutrality of the University of Chicago. It’s one thing to have a statement in the law or in University rules saying the organization doesn’t discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, which is a good thing to declare, but another thing entirely to publicly celebrate gay rights with flags.
If you allow such celebrations, that you must allow celebrations of all sentiments, and, depending who’s in charge of flags, you might not like some of the stuff being celebrated. Remember that the Confederate flag used to fly over the dome of the Capitol Building of South Carolina, until governor Nikki Haley declared in 2015 that it should be removed, and signed a bill to that effect. It was, of course, celebrating segregation. There are still bad feelings about the flag’s removal, of course.
A Hamtramck councilman expressed this sentiment, though he may well be dissimulating:
The resolution, brought by city council member Mohammed Hassan, says that the city will not provide special treatment to any group of people. City council members shared that flying a Pride flag could potentially lead to other “radical or racist groups” asking for their flags to be flown.
So while I do approve of a resolution that limits flags conveying political or ideological sentiments, I also disapprove of the timing of this resolution, which was clearly meant to convey a homophobic message during Pride Month. And it’s clear that this resolution was at bottom motivated by religious beliefs. But in the end, state governments, like universities, should show political, ideological, and moral neutrality in their public displays. An American and a state or city flag is sufficient.
However, a resolution that demonizes gays, damns Gay Pride Month, or tries to curb LGBTQ+ rights, well, that’s another thing, for that is discrimination.
Feel free to agree or disagree below.
h/t:Peter
Islam is not a liberal ideology. Celebrating, as a liberal thing, the election of a Muslim council seems an intellectual contradiction and, in this case, an own goal.
It reminds me of that cookie shop in Portland which celebrated the removal of the police and is now suing the city for the lack of police protection. It’s another example of failing to think things through.
Denial of reality also.
Reminds me of when the Friendly Atheist celebrated a Lutheran church in Pennsylvania closing and being replaced by a mosque.
That just about sums up that Unfriendly Atheist charlatan.
“own goal” meaning you shot the ball into your own goal. Now you’re at -1 point.
OHHHHH, I get it now – thank you.
I like that! “Own goal” – concise.
Coming soon: the choice of a tall building or crane to dispose of inconvenient gays.
I am not sure this has to do so much with homosexuality (in spite of the “fagless city” comment), as it does with transgenderism. There have been a number of protests against transgenerism involving groups including Muslims at schools recently. The concern seems to be about the indoctrination and transing (if you will) of children. These follow upon a number of statements by prominent politicians that parents don’t own their kids (implying the state does). The fact that Progressives purposefully blur the lines between homosexuality and transgenderism by using terms like LGBTQ+ and queer (which I know many gays reject for it’s current political meaning) makes it hard to know what the object really is. An attack on trans isn’t an attack on LGB, unless it is. The media, who are all in on the trans agenda, can’t be expected to help make things clear. Overall, though, I support government neutrality: US, State, and city flags only.
Agree. You encapsulated the “problem” perfectly.
Dr Brydon, I think this is the second time I basically agree with you (I can’t remember what the first time was about, but it was). Particularly “purposefully blur the line between homosexuality and transgenderism”, very well stated.
“These follow upon a number of statements by prominent politicians that parents don’t own their kids (implying the state does).”
I don’t see that implication. When parents don’t own their kids, the kids have some but not all rights. It does not imply the government owns those kids. I never ‘owned’ my kids, and the government never owned my kids. My kids had rights. And in my mind, all kids have some rights.
Thus, when kids are ‘taken away’ from their parents for significant neglect or abuse, the kids are not owned by the government. Instead a guardian ad litem (or similar) is appointed to represent the best interests of the child, not the best interests of the government. I recognize that sometimes a guardian ad litem may be overworked or a bad lawyer, but ethically they are bound to the interests of the child.
In the case of kids who express a gender different than assigned at birth, the government is not ‘owning’ the kids, because the government is not making decisions. In some cases the kids are (e.g. dress), in some cases doctors or psychologists are involved. In some cases teachers or guidance counselor may be aware, but I never heard an actual case where they were making decisions for the child. Accepting what the child says, maintaining confidentiality, sure, but not forcing the child to change gender against the child’s wishes.
I must be misinterpreting your parenthetical, or I am simply living in a bubble, as I cannot identify an actual situation that qualifies. I am willing to review any data you may provide.
There is a commenter here who is very much in the “actual situation” with one of his kids.
I am not aware of that situation. But, I will not request personal information about that. I respect privacy. I guess I will need to remain confused by what counts as the government “owning” a child. I thought the 13th Amendment stopped that, “except as punishment for crime”.
With respect, gender isn’t “assigned” at birth. Biological sex is observed at birth.
Sorry for the term confusion there.
US, state and municipal flags only — I agree! But the timing of this resolution during Pride Month leaves little doubt about its motivation.
Sounds like a very good rule to me.
I’d say if the council had banned *any* display (i.e. private display) of the pride flag, that would obviously be a violation of the first amendment rights of expression. Actually, their “ban” as stated protects the first amendment, because the first amendment also means that nobody can be forced to make (or fund) statements with which they do not agree. Displays made using *public* resources must thus never make political statements. Thus this ordinance protects freedom of speech.
As a gay man, I have no issue with not being able to fly any version of the Pride flag on public property. However, I think being able to fly “flags “that represent the international character” of the area,” is also political and shouldn’t be allowed. Would this city council ever fly an Israeli flag? I doubt it and that makes it political.
Agreed.
I hope the Muslim and Christian people of Michigan are very happy together. May they rote in some form of their made up hell. Lucky for me I never had a desire to go to Michigan. Kansas is bad enough
Am a Kansan, born & raised (some Kansans would say ‘reared’). Haven’t lived there for many decades now. Nor ever in Michigan. But I do think that Michigan has something Kansas would desperately like yet shall never possess again: water. The farmers have all but depleted the Ogallala aquifer by digging wells to irrigate corn, which they have no business planting in what is already nearly a desert in the best case scenario. Michigan, on the other hand, has Lake Michigan & Lake Huron & many, many little baby lakes inland. . . . Despite M.’s recent political blindness, I continue to vacation on Lake Michigan’s western shore every summer.
I’ve never understood why a religion is able to claim that I deserve to roast in Hell, but if I criticize the religion then I am the hater.
It is called “religious privilege”, and sadly, way too many liberals/leftists are frightened to challenge it.**
**Christianity excluded, of course.
I fully support the “flagless” city. If the policy is, in effect, neutral and tolerant, then it is largely irrelevant to me what motivates individual councilmen. Private citizens—and public officials in private capacity—who want to “support,” “affirm,” and “celebrate,” should be free to do so. Those who do not want to support, affirm, or celebrate should also be left free to refrain. I even support the rights of those who want to condemn or denigrate within the bounds of the law. Awful of me, I know.
I find it refreshing to hear (in this case, from our host) when someone says “I’m not really sure how I feel about this.” We need more of this uncertainty in our public discourse.
I’ve come around to agreeing with their decision for the reasons laid out – a governing body should not seen to endorse political views. But unfortunately this exercise in sober governance may not carry through the next election cycle.
“… from city property.”
That’s a detail of significance.
Because I don’t understand the guidelines, really.
Is it like a public library? Public park? The Peoples’ property?
It gives me pause.
But “bans” are for things like those crappy plastic bags. Free speech is not a bannable thing like a crappy brown plastic bag, and it will always go badly if it is banned, and flags are saying something – usually without written language.
So yeah, let it fly? Then someone can and should put up one of those American flags with the blue line or red line, or something similar.
Will there then be a plethora of flags?
The rule can apply only to city flagpoles that the city controls. To fly any flag from a city flagpole you have to have permission from the city council to run it up for you.. The resolution just means that the city will give that permission not to anyone who petitions them but only for non-ideological entities that represent everyone. For practical purposes this will be the national flag, the state flag, and the municipal flag if the city has one. Council will not fly divisive flags, like those of Ukraine, most other countries, BLM, and the Mohawk Warrior Society. Pride flags used to be inclusive, harmless, and fostering of bonhomie. The current Pride flag with its trans and black wedge driving into the innocuous rainbow stripes no longer meets that test, so it has to go. Consequence of activism is that fewer people will like you enough to want to display your symbols without asking what they stand for.
Our Virtue Signalling Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau stood up recently and in public and announced that “ Canada is awash with LBGTQ hatred completely missing the point of how much the movement is “awash with hatred” as demonstrated perhaps with the Pride Flag.
Most people I know just quietly accept that people have different sexual preferences and as long as it is legal and socially acceptable let them get on with it and call themselves whatever pronoun or title etc. They really do not care that much. It used to be said, “ do what makes you happy but don’t frighten the horses.
What they do not like is the constant pushing of the LGBTQ or whatever else agenda by what is basically a minority but with an agenda that seems to have an ulterior and somewhat dangerous agenda particularly when it involves young people and as I read recently vulnerable young girls. I do not know much about the sexual disphoria I think it was called but its spread via social media and certain groups seems real and a significant problem.
The competition for Most Oppressed Minority seems to attract new oppressed groups daily. Who the f—cares what you do in the privacy of your home? Assuming you DO it privately rather than making your private behavior a public issue so it attracts attention as well as adversaries. Celebrating your skin color or sexuality or age or health condition is something to celebrate at home among friends. The rest of us really dont give a damn. What we do give a damn about is insuring that the laws of our country are applied equally to everyone regardless of consequences. Otherwise it is the guy who kills his parents and pleads innocence as an orphan. What society should care about are pre adolescents and confused adolescents wanting to mutilate their bodies before they are adults who understand the consequences. it isn’t regressive or right wing or religious to prevent underage girls and boys from bodily mutilation and chemical poisoning any more than it is to prevent them from drinking alcohol.
If progressives and liberals wont curb this panic-induced dysphoria that spreads its virus on social media, then the conservatives will have to do it. In this case they are correct.
Well put, Lorna.
In case this is hard to believe, I am making a serious case here : no Titania McGrath fan fiction here :
The distinction between public and private is something of a norm, and queer theory by design first conflates the descriptive “normal” with the moral “normal” ; then antagonizes normativity to expose contradictions/problematics in the distinctions deliberately, such that distinctions – and the “socially-constructed” knowledge the distinctions are based on – are made irrelevant.
So a number of your straightforward suggestions about privacy – reasonable, IMHO – are rendered as a social problem to be eliminated by overthrow of the current flawed society and its knowledge in revolution. Perhaps the idea of parental roles of authority v. state as authority in particular, as – in Theory – society begets society.
I am summarizing these ideas from Marx, Judith Butler, Paulo Freire, and other such writers. I find it hard to believe, but the “queering” seems consistent with (at least) Marxism – even though it appears as easily-read sheepish writings or activity of little concern (examples abound).
Or, perhaps that’s all a conspiracy theory.
In terms of extant law, you’ve got that one backward, boss. SCOTUS held that Santeria practitioners can engage in private animal sacrifice in the case Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah (1993). But in the earlier case Employment Division v. Smith (1990), the Court held that Native Americans could be fired from their jobs and denied unemployment benefits for using peyote as part of their private religious practice.
First Amendment Free Exercise Clause jurisprudence is a mess.
Nevertheless, look for the current Court to expand Free Exercise Clause rights at the expense of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause.
“… at the expense of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause.”
For religions as we know them.
I see a very problematic overlap between laws against the cruel treatment of animals and laws supporting the right to sacrifice them for religious purposes. Can the city demand pain-free sacrifices? I doubt it. What keeps some creep from staging a cock fight and claiming it is being done to make his God smile upon us all? Religion presents an infinite number of “slippery slopes.” That’s largely why many people adhere to a religion. You are right, no matter what.
As of 2023, cockfighting is illegal in all 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and all U.S. territories. More to the point, most animal cruelty is banned, though, yes, not all. After all, we eat them after they’ve been cooped up for years, fattened and hormone fed for our benefit.
Irrational ideologies present a slippery slope, an ideology does not have to be an institutionalized religion and does not necessarily involved “god”.
There are also many many humans who practice a religion who are kind, thoughtful and reasonable. That has been my experience and I am not religious.
Re cock fighting: Hal Herzog makes a strong case for cock fights being way less cruel than the way we treat the chickens we eat, in his “Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat”. A book about the close to schizophrenic relations we humans have with animals.
I agree with everything you wrote. I am a lifelong atheist and I know and appreciate many many kind and thoughtful believers. They aren’t the problem.
Cockfighting was just the first thing that came to my mind as an example of obvious cruelty. Strike that and insert an example of cruelty that isn’t specifically proscribed by law.
When it comes to deciding the validity of rights claimed under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, court will not examine the truth or falsity of the claimed religious belief. (Hell, if they did, they’d have to find them all false.) But the court’s will examine evidence regarding the sincerity with which religious beliefs are asserted (considering things like the history of the claimants’ past religious practices).
The Pride flag today invariably includes the transgender wedge, which means it endorses the idea that those who fail to believe we’re all born with an internal “gender” refuse to do so because they have an irrational form of bigoted hatred bordering on mental illness. That’s… controversial. A lot of people do not feel welcome or included in places where the flag is displayed. A fair argument can be made against government displaying such a flag.
Banning all such symbols from government property seems fair enough. Those who feel it harms them are exhibiting the same form of privilege as those who rail against the removal of manger scenes. Just because it was already there doesn’t mean it’s an established value for all.
A majority council of conservative Muslims are possibly going to do something worse. Wait for it …
“gender”
kind of like a soul.
I think I agree. I suspect what makes the decision feel queasy is the sense that it only came out as supporting viewpoint neutrality *accidentally*. As you say, we’re likely to see many other initiatives from this council that are, by contrast, blatantly sectarian (the animal sacrifice one already is, and there will doubtless be others).
> A majority council of conservative Muslims are possibly going to do something worse. Wait for it …
That’s a valid concern. If local businesses and private property owners fly pride flags, they risk being on the receiving end of the “religion of peace.”
I am a firm believer in judging policies by their consequences rather than intent. This is one of my main complaints about people on the Left. Often they think that having good intentions is enough — and they don’t put in the due diligence to see whether or not their policies actually worked.
In this case I think the policy is perfectly reasonable and I don’t think it matters what their intentions are as long as the consequences of the policy are beneficial.
What about laws that are neutral on their face but were clearly intended to promote a prohibited purpose. For example, the statement required to be read to ninth-grade students at Dover high school was facially neutral (in that it made no mention of religion), but federal district judge John E. Jones III struck the policy down because statements by the school board members during debate over the policy made plain that its intent was to promote a particular religion in violation of the First Amendment Establishment Clause.
A similar analysis was undertaken by SCOTUS in Edwards v. Aguillard (1987). Justice Scalia and Chief Justice Rehnquist dissented in that case on the basis that the stated purpose of the Louisiana law requiring equal time for teaching evolution and creation science — to “promote academic freedom” — was facially neutral.
That is right in the sense that the statement did not mention religion directly:
How did the court connect it to religion? Was it through Intelligent Design? ID does not have churches, but it is plausible that it has a Designer that is practically a synonym for ‘Creator’.
The court connected it to religion through the statements of school board members during debate over the adoption of the proposal. Those statements made plain that the school board members who introduced and voted for the proposal were doing so with the intent to promote a particular Christian theology.
Nikki Haley was not an elected official in 2000. She supported the confederate flag until the Charleston church shooting in 2015. Only then did she change her tune.
I meant 2015 and have changed it.
The Muslim all to prayer is itself oppressive and tribal. If you know the words, it firmly declares there is no god but the Muslim god. Loudspeakers are pumping out the supremacy of Islam, not a benign call to prayer time.
About Islamic oppression the following is interesting.
From the Spectator UK
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-do-we-never-talk-about-islamic-slavery
We don’t talk about Māori slavery much either. I learned much of it (and worse) from friends who are Māori and dislike how their tribal elders polish it up.
Just checked this–great article!
So is a church bell, though both can sound nice.
Maybe if we wore rainbow niqabs?
LOL!
All religions believe there is no god but theirs. Note how orthodox Jewish rabbis always support Muslim demands for special treatment and privilege as well as forcing religion into secular daily life. After they help each other get the foot in the door, then they will resume their mutual hatred except when religion is attacked or restrained. Then they join forces again. As someone famous once said, religion is poison.
Many lesbians and gay men are extremely disenamoured with Pride and what they see as the “forced teaming” of sexual orientation (LGB) with unrelated transgender,non-binary, and queer theory identities (TQ+).
The very existence of same-sex attraction is being erased by its replacement with “same-gender attraction”, which insists that a heterosexual male who identifies as a woman can be a lesbian. The lesbian group Get the L Out, who object to this nonsense, were excluded from the Pride March in London and lesbian organisations with similar views have been attacked elsewhere. Fred Sergeant, a veteran of the Stonewall Riots, was attacked at a Pride March in Vermont.
There’s a good discussion, across the political divide, between leftist lesbian Julie Bindel and conservative gay man Douglas Murray about their mutual dislike of what Pride has become, here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YysgbnBohhc&feature=youtu.be
Back when the LGBT+ were trying to get out of the woodwork so to speak, as in the 1960-70s they were just wanting to be open and respected, fair enough. And the Pride thing started as just a celebration like any other one for groups in society, a chance for a garish party.
Unsurprisingly religious/conservative groups were all up in arms over them and well we know how interesting they got. Counter after counter, each out-doing each other until it all spills over as what we see today.
It’s the classic example of how the oppressed of the past get over the top in the end. A good reason to end discrimination before it gets out of hand.
I’d say if the council had banned *any* display (i.e. private display) of the pride flag, that would obviously be a violation of the first amendment rights of expression. Actually, their “ban” as stated protects the first amendment, because the first amendment also means that nobody can be forced to make (or fund) statements with which they do not agree. Displays made using *public* resources must thus never make political statements. Thus this ordinance protects freedom of speech.
I’m not sure if PCC(E) posted about this excellent Andrew Sullivan essay – I give the headline, and a quote, but you’ll have to get it on Substack somehow – yeah, it’s off-topic, but eh :
“The Queers Versus The Homosexuals”
“We are in a new era. And the erasure of gay men and lesbians is intensifying.”
ANDREW SULLIVAN
MAY 19, 2023
[excerpt]:
“Then the queers upped the ante and did something we gays never did: they targeted children. If they could get into kids’ minds, bodies and souls from the very beginning of their lives, they could abolish the sex binary from the ground up. And so they got a pliant, woke educational establishment to re-program children from the very start, telling toddlers that any single one of them could be living in the wrong body, before they could even spell.”
“First Amendment expert Eugene Volokh finds the city’s policy likely consistent with the Constitution”
https://twitter.com/walterolson/status/1670831127089627137
I don’t agree with your qualifiying of the pride flag as political.
First, let’s be clear, everything in society is political. And I Mean, everything. That is the same as saying that nothing is. Obviously, and if we accept the point, we all sense that some things are more “political” than others. What could that be if everything is political?
The USA flag, for example, is, maybe, the most politcal one in the world (and that’s not to say what it stands for is good or bad, it’s just a statement of fact). Maybe that’s not so clear to USA citizens, who live with it and with that for which it stands everyday. But the USA Declaration of independence, which inspired the french Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (and both would inspire the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) It’s inevitably politic. So, would you ban fliying the USA flag on public buildings (in USA territory)? No, that would be absurd.
So, why would have some merit baning the rainbow flag on the grounds that it’s a political symbol? No, if there some ground for baning the rainbow flag on public buildings, it can’t be this.
I think you are over-reading “political”. Of course the Stars and Stripes is the national flag of a political entity called the United States of America. Flying the flag of the United States is not making a political statement when it is flying from a public building in the United States. Flying any foreign flag or a banner/flag that is the symbol of a particular cause with a political agenda would be. The safest rule is for city council to say it will not display flags other than the national and municipal flags simply because that is seen as customary and not political.
They will want to be careful even with national flags of foreign countries to honour Polish Sausage Day or Yemeni Independence Day as some countries arouse more spite and controversy than others. The official display of any foreign national flag on American soil is fraught with divided loyalties and goes against the melting-pot expectations of the American experiment. Technically, flying a foreign flag is claiming that piece of territory for a foreign government, which is fighting words, even if protected under the First Amendment.
No I am not. The thing is that politics is always “under-readed”, so when considers politics right, it can seem as over-reading.
You are making a good point, if a bit mistaken. Of course flying the Stars And Stripes within the USA is political, it wouldn’t make sense to fly It otherwise, It would amount to the flag standing for nothing, for example taking pride as Americans on the values it represents. It shouldn’t be (and I asume it usually isn’t, I don’t live there) controversial. That’s why, at the same time, is totally a political statement and can be flown. Because is the flag of all americans in their own home, It stands for something all americans should and can agree.
Look, I recognize that banning fliying the Stars And Stripes withing USA soid would be absurd. son on that point we seem to agree.
So, on the rainbow flag, my point is that it should be banned because it shouldn’t be controversial. Nobody has any reason to be against gay rights (as nobody should have any reason to be against civil rights), the fliying shouldn’t raise a concern; they aim to give rights to some without taking them from others (even if some fights which want to be represented by the rainbow are misguided or just wrong. the misuse of the symbol doesn’t negate the symbol itself), this is not forcing gayness on anyboy, even if some individuals were doing it.
The point could be made that al the claims of the gay rights movement are already represented by the Stars And Stripes. Even if that is so, at this point is history, it shouldn’t be banned on public buildings, gay rights it’s maybe the single fight (aparta from class strugle, if you believe in it as I do, but I won’t get into that) which would benefit the most people. Making an exception for the rainbow is a must.
I know and you all know that that the banning in Michigan comes from Homophobia. Even if is only for that, we should be for fliying it.
Polish Sausage Day would be a fine idea, in my view, but that was not celebrated in Hamtramck: it was Paczki Day they celebrated every spring. That practice was fully consistent with the constitution inasmuch as it establishes a pastry rather than a religion. The present Hamtramck authorities apparently consider loud broadcasting of the muezzin’s call to prayer as not so much a religious as a civic custom, like NPR.
A white, elderly city council in upstate new york blocked the application of a jewish sleepaway camp site on an abandoned church site. that site is now a mosque. theyd rather have this i guess.