OK, kiddo! Here are all the fantastically amazing posts tagged with Pride flags
Mayoral Candidate Compares Gay Flag To Nazi Flag
Sherry Clymer, a first-time mayoral candidate in Ajax, Ontario, is feeling a little out of her league after lashing out at the incumbent mayor during a public debate late last week.
Clymer, a former taxi dispatcher, triggered media controversy on Thursday when she attacked mayor Steve Parrish for raising a rainbow flag during Pride Week in June. “What makes the gays any more deserving of their flag hanging than anyone else?” she asked the mayor, adding that he should “also be hanging up the Nazi flag.”
This rather silly line of reasoning has been used before. In 2008, Allister MacDonald, a councilor from Nova Scotia’s Pictou County, said that raising a gay pride flag would inevitably lead to flying “everybody’s flag.” “It could be the Nazi party or the bikers,” MacDonald illustrated, “it could be anyone.” Just a year before that, mayor Bill Mills of Truro, Nova Scotia, made up a flag for his slippery slope argument. “If I have a group that says pedophiles should have rights, do we raise their flag too?” he asked.
Now, this should go without saying, but flying the rainbow stripes during the community’s gay pride week doesn’t mean you then have to fly Nazi and pedophile flags. The latter doesn’t even exist, for one, and I can’t imagine that the Ajax city hall has ever received a request to fly a Nazi flag once in the entire history of the town. But, forgetting all that, if you honestly can’t think of a good reason to not place symbols of genocide and child rape at the forefront of your town, you’re not a very fit mayor.
In a media interview meant to regain favour after the incident, Ms. Clymer apologised for her Nazi remark, clarifying that she didn’t mean to compare gays to Nazis; she just simply opposes any recognition of the struggles and achievements of the city’s gay community. “What is so good about being gay?” she asked rhetorically during her apology interview. “If you are promoting entering the gay lifestyle, that’s wrong.”
And this is what all these stories boil down to. Ignorance.
First, let’s get this nonsense about “entering the gay lifestyle” out of the way. Gay people lead all sorts of different lives; they have different careers, different hobbies, and like different activities. Sexual orientation is a trait, not a lifestyle. It’s innate, unchangeable, and no more possible to “promote entering” than the tall lifestyle or the blue-eyed lifestyle.
It’s clear to me that raising the Pride flag isn’t what Ms. Clymer likes to think it is. It’s not a recruitment tool because there’s nothing to recruit for. It’s simply a gesture of recognition on the part of city hall. Recognition that the gay community, as diverse as it is, universally has to put up with exactly this sort of nonsense nonstop, and a simple gesture that everyone in the town, including gay people, are valued for who they are. Gay people are a part of Ajax’s diverse community. If Ms. Clymer can’t value her constituents, she’s not ready to be mayor.
- Ajax mayoral candidate in a flap over gay flag [Toronto Star]
- Political rookie caught in Nazi flag flap [Toronto SUN]
Vandals Remove, Slash City Hall Pride Flag
I guess someone in Amherst, Nova Scotia isn’t too fond of rainbows.
A Pride flag that was being flown in front of Amherst’s city hall to celebrate the Cumberland Gay Pride week was removed and slashed by vandals on Thursday. The Mayor, Robert Angel, said he’s disappointed about the vandalism, and quickly had the flag replaced.
Cumberland Pride’s chair, Gerard Velhoven, expressed his disappointment to the press:
Amherst is a very positive town. We had such a great event here Monday that made everyone feel so good, then a couple of days later you get a call from the town that your flag has been vandalised.
It makes me feel awful, but having said that I’m hoping this is an isolated incident.
The saddest part of all this is that the vandalism totally worked: After hearing about the vandalism, all of Amherst’s gay population reportedly turned straight.
- Gay pride flag slashed [Chronicle Herald]
“Safe Space” Programs Mean Just That
Before the holidays, I linked to an excellent blog post by Montréal Simon about St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, and how anti-gay lobbyists had launched a campaign to tear down the rainbow Pride flag that is hung there.
Displaying the rainbow flag or a small rainbow flag sticker is something that many businesses and campuses across Canada choose to do—and many people probably can’t imagine the relief that this gesture can bring to a gay person.
Having the rainbow flag sticker affixed to a storefront window or an office door signifies to gay people that we can let our guard down and know that we will be treated fairly. To me, it means I won’t have a repeat of my experience at a walk-in clinic where, after answering questions about my sexual health and disclosing my orientation in the process, I was treated with a noticeable disrespect, ordered to have STD tests, and was put on antibiotics without any telltale symptoms—all for an upper leg / groin pain that ultimately turned out to be caused by a cheap, folding office chair.
On campuses across Canada, the rainbow sticker is known as the “positive space” or “safe space” program, and the University of Victoria is just the latest institution to consider it. It’s an accurate title for an important program—and it’s one that’s under relentless attack by anti-gay groups and lobbyists.
In 2004, employees at the Royal Bank of Canada launched an employee-driven, non-mandatory, safe space program. It meant that if I needed to go into the bank as a couple for a loan, mortgage, joint account, or other service—I could seek out agents displaying the rainbow sticker and know that I’d be treated with the same respect as any other customer. Almost immediately, The Canadian Family Action Coalition launched a boycott against the Royal Bank, instructing members to close their RBC accounts and send angry letters and phone calls to the company. The bank panicked and caved, and all RBC employees were forbidden to display the rainbow sticker.
The pettiness, disingenuity, and hostility toward safe space programs and rainbow flags has been a sore spot for me for quite some time. Anti-gay groups call these programs an endorsement of the homosexual lifestyle—whatever that is—and have the audacity to claim that it’s a discriminatory practise: That employees who don’t wish to display the sticker would be treated with disrespect (a notion I reject). Yet these groups encourage hostility toward anyone who chooses to display it.
So, if you run a business, or work with customers in an office—consider a simple gesture to signify that you will treat everyone respectfully. Put a rainbow sticker somewhere visible. And if anyone objects, clarify that they are welcome too; that it’s just a safe space.
- UVic eyes positive space [Martlet]
- Royal Bank clerks asked to show pro-gay unity [CTV News]
Musical Pastor Penguins Marry Uruguanian Dogs
In my web travels, I often collect stories that I intend to share, but then become distracted by newer, shinier stories—or feel too lazy to illustrate them individually. This is what becomes of those stories: a Pile o’ Slaps!
Montreal Simon has an excellent post about an anti-gay group that’s campaigning to have a Pride flag removed from the lobby of St. Michael’s hospital in Toronto. Now, removing the only symbol that indicates gay people won’t be treated differently at the hospital might sound petty, but at least they’re consistent and also support the removal of religious symbols from state build—oh, wait.
A gay penguin couple that had been expelled from a zoo in China for stealing heterosexual penguin’s eggs has been allowed back after protests from zoo visitors. Zookeepers will give the penguins an egg from an inexperienced mother to try and curb the thefts. Religious penguins are furious, calling gay penguinism unnatural and against the teachings of the penguin bible.
Rufus Wainwright, the popular gay folksinger, is in hot water after an interview in which he advocated for equal marriage rights by saying “if you want to marry a dog, why don’t you go ahead and marry a dog, I don’t care.” Well, that ought to convince the religious right to abandon their fight against equal marriage rights. Thanks, Rufus.
United States President-elect, Barack Obama, is being criticised by gay groups after selecting an anti-gay pastor to preside over his inauguration this January. It’s not the greatest choice, granted, but I suppose you’d rather have the previous guy as president?
Reuters is announcing, for reasons I don’t fully understand, that the recently-opened Shrek musical has a “gay pride element.” And a religious right boycott will start in 3… 2…
Uruguay’s senate has (snicker) supposedly paved the way for same-sex marriage after passing a (chortle) law that allows people to legally change their gender. Tee hee. U-ru-guay.
Finally, and surprisingly, the United States has refused to sign a UN declaration opposing the criminalization of homosexuality worldwide. Many U.S. officials had privately expressed concern that signing the declaration would contradict state laws that allow landlords and private employers to discriminate against gay people. Yeah, why oppose unjust laws abroad if it means facing them at home?
Well, that’s it for today’s Pile o’ Slaps. Have a great weekend, kids!
Dr. Flamingo Jones and the Quest for the Artifact of Many Colours
I’m exceptionally pleased to present today’s Guest Slap. The author, Dr. Flamingo Jones, is a world-renowned archaeologist and researcher at the University of Oxbridgeshire. While I know little about his reclusive past and current whereabouts, he has kindly agreed to share with us, occasionally, his knowledge, discoveries, and insights.
Good day to you, ladies, gentlemen, and those who do not wish to confine yourselves to such limiting terminology. Today, I, Dr. Flamingo Jones, intrepid explorer, researcher extraordinaire, and head of the Department of Queer Archaeology at the University of Oxbridgeshire, am most humbly honoured to be writing a guest post for Slap Upside The Head. You may have heard of me from my previous work, such as my unearthing of the famous trove of phalli found in the great pyramid of Khufu.
Today I am here to discuss a much more recent artifact: The rainbow flag. As a researcher of Queer Archaeology, I am often asked about how the rainbow flag came into being. Some assume that the rainbow flag has always been a symbol for homosexuality, because, really, what could possibly be gayer? However, the truth is that the origins of this important gay pride symbol are much more recent than many folks suspect.
The creation of the rainbow flag is attributed to one Mr. Gilbert Baker (video interview) of San Francisco, who created it in 1978 to serve as a symbol for the gay community there. The original flag was influenced by a striped, multi-coloured—but not rainbow-coloured—flag to promote racial harmony, and has undergone myriad transformations over the years with revisions and vexillological offspring involving stars, hearts, triangles, paws, changes in the colours and number of stripes. In fact, Baker’s original flag had eight colours, as opposed to the current standard of six. These eight colours were pink, red, orange, yellow, green, turquoise, indigo, and violet, which, according to Baker, represented respectively: sexuality, life, healing, sun, nature, art, harmony, and spirit. However, the first flags were dyed and sewed by Baker himself along with volunteers, so supply was limited and most of the public had to just go ahead and use whatever rainbow-ish flags they could find, regardless of what those flags actually represented. These flags came from all sorts of different origins, such as the Italian Peace Flag against war and nuclear weapons, India’s Meher Baba spirituality flag, or the Wiphala flag of the ancient Incan civilization.
Later that same year, San Francisco’s mayor, George Moscone, was assassinated along with Harvey Milk, the city’s first openly gay supervisor. In the wake of this tragedy, the gay community made the decision to rally around Baker’s flag as a source of strength and solidarity for the 1979 gay pride parade. However, when Baker went to mass produce his flags, he found that hot pink fabric was not as easily available as he had expected. That colour was removed from the flag. The decision was then made to change the indigo stripe to blue, and eliminate the turquoise stripe altogether, bringing it down to just six stripes, so that the flag could be displayed evenly along the parade route, with three colours on either side of the street’s lamp posts.
A fascinating history for a fascinating piece of our cultural tapestry, don’t you think? I shall be back in the future with more important issues in the field of queer archaeology, but for now I must be off. Those ancient Egyptian phalli won’t unearth themselves!
County Flag Pole Has Great Potential For Evil
Nova Scotia’s Pictou County Council is afraid. They’ve got a flag pole outside their administrative building and it’s causing grave concern for councilors. County Warden Allister MacDonald explains:
If the gay community came and said “fly my flag,” we, under human rights, would have to fly everybody’s flag. It could be the Nazi party or the bikers; it could be anyone. And, from what our understanding is, you either fly everybody’s flag [...] or you put a policy in that says “these are the flags we’re going to fly.”
Now, no gay rights group has actually asked the folks at Pictou County to fly the rainbow stripes. Nevertheless, the council has found itself amidst a lengthy and controversial flag banning discussion. Apparently, if a gay rights group ever were to request raising a flag on their pole, the Nazi party wouldn’t be far behind—or, at least, that’s what their understanding is.
Frankly, I don’t think their understanding is very understandable.
In the event that a totalitarian political party from wartime Germany requested to fly their flag in Pictou County, Nova Scotia, there would be no problems refusing their request—what with the unforgivable crimes against humanity and all. But I don’t think the councilors in Pictou were afraid of Nazi flag requests in the first place. They’re afraid of contention.
You see, if a gay rights group were to request that a rainbow flag fly on the administration building’s pole, there would be dissenters in the council—just like there were in Truro. To justify a “no” vote, these dissenters must explain their discomfort with gay people. Unlike explaining one’s rationale against requests from totalitarian regimes of the Third Reich, however, explaining discomfort with gay people would be met with criticism. Rather than face such criticism—or, better yet, the roots of their discomfort—the councilors would rather ban flag-flying requests altogether.
It’s not a particularly honorable stance—and particularly when no flag requests have been made in the first place. As Councilor David Parker put it:
Other municipalities fly these flags routinely of various groups to support their cause and their beliefs and I don’t have a problem with that. We’ve had no policy for 128 years. We’ve had no problem until it became a problem in one person’s mind.
Well said, David.
- Questions raised as Pictou County mulls flag rules [CBC News]
- Homophobia behind flag policy—councillor [Chronicle Herald]
Updates From The (Pink) Road
Hey, kids! Well, I’ve successfully defended my master’s thesis, and now it’s time to head even further west to see family. While on the road, here are some stories and updates that caught my eye:
The town of Truro, Nova Scotia, has adopted an official flag-flying policy to avoid any more situations like this summer’s Pride flag fiasco, in which the mayor compared gays to pedophiles. The new policy is straightforward, too: From now on, government flags only.
Statistics from the 2006 national census are in, and when it comes to the same-sex figures, things are clearly up for interpretation:
- 30 percent rise in same-sex couples: census [Xtra]
- Canada has only a sprinkling of gay couples: census [Reuters]
Speaking of census data, a Calgary SUN article has asserted: “Calgary is holding the fort in a country where the notion of the traditional family is increasingly under siege, states a federal census.” Really? The federal census states the traditional family is under siege? Or perhaps this is just a little bit of phrasing bias coming from Alberta’s gayest city.
With all the attention Alvaro Orozco has been getting, there’s a great article in NOW magazine reminding us that this is not an isolated case. Leonardo Zuniga, another gay refugee, is slated for deportation within the next few weeks. Why not take a couple minutes to help him out?
Until Friday, kids!
Anti-Gay Town Receives Human Rights Complaint
A human rights complaint has been filed against the town of Truro for refusing to fly a gay Pride flag, while accommodating other organisations’ flag-flying requests.
Although the town’s decision to pass on the Pride flag inherently raised suspicions of homophobia, Truro mayor Bill Mills removed all doubt when he delivered this gem to the media: “If I have a group of people that says pedophiles should have rights, do we raise their flag too?”
Now, I’ve written about why the mayor’s understanding of the Pride flag is deeply flawed, but I have to say I’m a little concerned that a human rights complaint—filed over what basically amounts to a rude dismissal—would turn him into a martyr of sorts. (I can see the “pro-family” headlines spinning now: “Glorious Mayor Mills Tortured and Fed to Eels By Homosexual Secularists For Bravely Defending Religious Freedoms.”)
Truro Pride, the group that filed the complaint, said the town did not contact them to resolve the matter privately, and the complaint was necessary to kick-start discussion and draft an official policy for flag raising—a valid strategy when dealing with stubborn and wrong policy-makers. Let’s just hope the concerns are resolved quickly and civilly.
- Rainbow flag snub sparks human rights complaint [CBC News]
- Gay-pride group files complaint over Truro flag flap [Chronicle Herald]
Anti-Gay Callers Harass Wrong Woman
Sharon Laura Farrell of Nova Scotia was baffled by the abusive, homophobic telephone calls she received this week. That is, until she discovered that she had the same name as a Truro woman who organized a gay rights rally on Monday. The rally was held in protest of Mayor Bill Wills’ comparison of gays to pedophiles after the town voted to not fly a gay pride flag at city hall.
Sharon Laura Farrell, who had no knowledge of the rally or the flag dispute, was shocked at what she heard:
It really doesn’t matter who they were intended for. No one should ever have to deal with the phone calls I got today. I certainly didn’t appreciate the very negative tone of those calls.
When I told [a particular caller] she had the wrong person, it didn’t seem to matter. It was an exasperating phone call because I don’t tolerate people yelling at me on the phone. I finally told her she had the wrong person and hung up.
Eventually, Ms. Farrell became so fed up with the abuse that she contacted Sharon Farrell, the rally organizer, and became involved in gay rights.
I was very impressed with [the organizer]. She is very sincere and she was aghast that anyone would go to such great lengths to get a phone number or to make phone calls like that. I was impressed by her stand. It got me involved.
Good for you, Sharon and Sharon!
- Anti-gay calls miss target [Chronicle Herald]
- Rally held after Truro council rejects pride flag [CTV News]
Town Council Misunderstands Gay Pride Flag
Flashback: The year is 1989 and—oh, wait, no. I misread something. Let’s try this again.
August, 2007: The town council of Truro, Nova Scotia (population 11,700) has voted 6-1 against raising a Pride flag at city hall during the city’s gay pride week. The mayor, Bill Mills, decides to let his words speak louder than actions:
If I have a group of people that says pedophiles should have rights, do we raise their flag too? I don’t want to lump them in with homosexuals, but that’s the point—the issues—and that’s my feeling.
Gays and lesbians already have equal opportunities and work and pension benefits; I wonder what else they’re fighting for.
Charming lad.
So, what else are gay people fighting for? Freedom from being publicly compared to pedophiles by ignorant mayors is a good start. I am not a criminal.
You see, the folks running Truro are unusually slow at understanding the Pride flag. Bill Mills considers it a display of arrogance—a means to “flaunt a lifestyle” to those who don’t care to see it. He’s the type of person who emails me now and then to ask why gays are so insistent on visibility when there isn’t a straight pride flag or straight pride parade.
My take is simple: Pride flags exists because pride is the opposite of shame, which is precisely how people like Mills would have us gays feel. The “lifestyle” I’m supposedly flaunting is, in reality, no different from anyone else’s, but there’s a lot I’ve had to put up with. Pride is a fitting symbol: I am proud of having overcome the misinformation I was fed over the years about gay people; I’m proud of overcoming the personal struggle to accept who I am; and I’m especially proud of how I continue to overcome ignorant policy-makers, lobbyists, journalists, individuals, and churches who don’t hesitate to attack me at every opportunity.
Raising the Pride flag is not an “endorsement” of any particular lifestyle—and certainly not the lifestyle that Mayor Mills has chosen to assign to all of a diverse group. Rather, it’s a gesture of dignity and recognition of a minority’s struggle that, if refused in this manner, re-enforces the purpose of why that symbol exists. Mayor Mills may not care to see the Pride flag one week a year, but I have to put up with discriminatory nonsense all the time.
Incidentally, municipal proclamations such as flag raising are generally considered a public service of city hall.
A tip o’ the hat to Devin Maxwell, who grew up in Truro.
- N.S. town council votes against raising pride flag [CTV News]
- Truro in gay flag flap [CBC News]
- Truro mayor: It’s not OK to be gay [Chronicle Herald]
Refugees, Flags, Censorship, and Constitutionality
Let’s do the follow-up thing today:
- Alvaro Orozco, the refugee who was denied Canadian citizenship because he didn’t look “gay enough” is still facing deportation to Nicaragua where homosexuality is illegal. The application to re-open his case was dismissed, but there’s still a chance he could file a standard application for immigration from within Canada on humanitarian grounds. Sadly, pretending to be gay to obtain refugee status is not uncommon, but the circumstances under which Orozco’s application was denied were downright silly.
- Niagara Falls officials have replaced the Pride flag that mysteriously vanished less than four hours after its raising ceremony. Thankfully they have “some ideas” to make sure this one stays put. At the top of the list: piping in Kylie Minogue to create an appropriate anti-heterosexual radius.
- The City of Ottawa has adopted policies ensuring that Capital Xtra, a gay community newspaper, cannot be censored from city community centres. The paper was removed from a public facility after Greg Evans, a local man, complained that his son could have seen it at basketball practice. Though the paper’s censorship was illegal, I can attest to the dangers of gay community newspapers: The last time I picked one up, I got a paper cut.
- The federal conservatives’ scrapping of the gay-friendly Court Challenges Program has turned out to be illegal. According to a report by the official languages commissioner, removing public funding to challenge unconstitutional laws violated Officials Languages Act. The government, in the interests of transparency and accountability, has not responded.
Well, have a great weekend kiddos!
Pride Flag Disappears From Niagara City Hall
Officials and community members in Niagara Falls have been left scratching their heads after the first-ever gay pride flag to be flown over city hall went missing a mere four hours after its raising ceremony.
So far, there’s no word on what happened to the flag or if it has been replaced. Although, after years of following these sorts of stories, I think it’s clear who took it: Mutant seagulls.
- Pride flag missing from city hall [Niagara Falls Review]
- Rainbow flag rises above city hall [St. Catherines Standard]
