An email landed in the editor’s inbox the other day with a not-so-simple question.
“Why is the rainbow flag going to be flying at Burnaby City Hall?”
The emailer then proceeded to say that if the pride flag is allowed to be flown at city hall, then every other “special interest” and religious group will demand that their flag be flown.
“Where will it end?”
Now, there’s a lot to unpack here, but we’re going to give it a try.
First, as background, last week city council passed a motion to raise the pride flag from Aug. 9 to 13. It also agreed to provide a $3,400 grant to the organizers of an Aug. 11 street party that is set to take place in Burnaby on Jubilee Avenue. This will be Burnaby’s first-ever official LGBTQ pride event. The reason the flag is being flown is due to a request by a gay Burnaby resident. Putting aside why it took a request for the city to fly the flag – instead of showing leadership and support by flying it without being prompted – it’s still a good thing for the city to do.
Secondly, LGBTQ people are not a “special interest” group. This is not their “interest," like choosing hunting as a hobby or a group of building contractors lobbying government to change union rules. This is who they are as human beings. Unlike people in religious groups, who choose to believe something, LGBTQ people are born who they are. It’s not a lifestyle choice or a fad they are trying out to see if they like it. Some have come late to expressing who they truly are as people, but that’s because they’ve been too afraid of discrimination.
It’s that discrimination that brings us to Point 3 – the real reason why the pride flags are flown. The word "pride" is a counterpoint to all the hate faced by members of the LGBTQ community.
For too long, LGBTQ people had to hide in the shadows because who they were was illegal. One the world’s greatest scientists, Alan Turing, was chemically castrated in England in 1952 for being gay.
Closer to home, Toronto police once executed a nasty bit of policing called “Operation Soap” – which involved raiding a series of bathhouses frequented by gay men.
That was only in 1981!
Apart from police harassment, there’s the violence faced by LGBTQ people. One term used is “gay bashing,” and it still goes on.
And then there’s the vandalism. Just in the last six weeks, two new rainbow crosswalks in Surrey and Salmon Arm were both defaced by hateful idiots right after they were unveiled. The same happened in New Westminster in 2015 and Fort Langley in 2017. And just last Friday, only one day after it was painted by a group of children, somebody defaced some rainbow steps in Richmond
So pride, the crosswalks and the flags are all an answer to this hate. It says that LGBTQ people will no longer hide who they truly are. And when local governments fly the rainbow flag, it’s a sign of solidarity. It says this kind of discrimination is not welcome in our city.
This isn’t anything new, of course. It feels ridiculous to even have to write this in 2018, but here we are.
