(LifeSiteNews) — The Encyclopedia Brittanica notes in its column on flags that they “originally were used mainly in warfare, and to some extent they have remained insignia of leadership, serving for the identification of friend or foe and as rallying points. They are now also extensively employed for signaling, for decoration, and for display.” That description effectively explains why the “Pride” flag has become such a flashpoint in the culture wars – and why LGBT activists apply such value to it.
The rainbow flag – since replaced by the even uglier “Progress flag” – was designed by Gilbert Baker, a gay rights activist, at the request of Harvey Milk, a San Francisco politician and LGBT icon. It was unveiled in June of 1978, and now flies on government, corporate, and military institutions around the world, a symbol of the LGBT movement’s rise from rabble-rousing activism to total cultural dominance. To object to the “Pride flag” is to question this dominance – and to provoke an instant and vicious response from those who rally around it.
As I noted in my essay on the ongoing targeting of a single church in a small town in Ontario over the local council’s decision to fly only civic flags from civic flagpoles, LGBT activists are, with the assistance of the press, engaging in a game of gaslighting. They hang Pride flags from every pole, and then call those who have the audacity to notice this sudden profusion of LGBT symbolism bigots. “How dare you notice the ideological flags we have hung all over your town and your government buildings and the school your child attends! Shut up and show you’re an ally – or the CBC will write an article about the ‘backlash!’”
When people object to this, the enforcers of tolerance emerge with a vengeance – nobody is permitted to question the regime. If you object to a flag that has never been flown before in your town being put up in front of your business, you will be told that to object to the flag is to make the area “unsafe” and that young people are likely to commit suicide as a result. Councillor Rhonda Jebenville in the Ontario municipality of Chatham-Kent put a motion forward in April which has since failed. Jubenville received a flood of hate, including two death threats, from LGBT supporters.
“I’ve been called words that I had to look up,” Jubenville noted. She even had “a witch’s spell cast on me, all because I feel our three governmental flags are what is needed outside municipal centres. Why would I now, as a councillor, feel compelled to support some of these groups that wish me death and hate over a flag? This should concern all of council.” The mainstream media ignored the story, because it doesn’t fit their narrative – those who oppose the flags are the aggressors; those who support them are the victims.
Nonetheless, people are getting sick and tired of having the ideology constantly forced down their throats for several months every year. Orange County, California has voted to permit only civic flags on civic flagpoles, as did Huntington Beach, Redlands, and Delano. Cold Spring, New York rejected both Pride flags and Ukrainian flags, limiting the range to U.S., state, and POW flags. Southington, Connecticut has passed an identical policy; Delaware, Ohio restricted their poles to only three flags. According to Forbes, twenty school districts have banned Pride flags, and several companies, like Exxon, have “banned non-company flags.”
In most instances, these policies are being put in place because people are tired of public property turning into a never-ending battle in the pelvic culture wars. In some instances, however, these standoffs are highlighting the profound differences between various aspects of the “progressive” coalition, which was always an ultimately unsustainable coalition between groups with distinctly different worldviews. That was illustrated clearly recently in Michigan. From the Guardian this month:
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… 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.’
Hamtramck joins more than two dozen other municipalities and school districts across the U.S. that has implemented a ban – and there will likely be many more.
