Voters ban Pride flags on city property in California beach town. ‘It sets a tone’
Residents in a California beach town voted to ban Pride flags from being flown on city property in a move some are calling a display of “bigotry.”
Just over 58% of voters in Huntington Beach were in favor of Measure B, which prohibits flying certain flags on city property, according to Super Tuesday election results on the Orange County Registrar of Voters website.
The ballot measure enshrines a previously approved ordinance into the city’s charter. The issue was brought up at a city council meeting about a year ago, McClatchy News previously reported.
The proposal came from then-newly elected council member Pat Burns, who wrote, “As a municipal organization, the City of Huntington Beach should avoid actions that could easily or mistakenly be perceived as divisive,” McClatchy News reported.
The council voted 4-3 to reverse a 2021 decision to celebrate Pride month in June by flying the Pride flag.
The measure allows only for specific flags to be flown on city property: the U.S. flag, the California state flag, the Orange County flag, the City of Huntington Beach flag, armed forces flags, and flags honoring prisoners of war and military members missing in action, and the Olympic flag during the Summer Olympic Games.
A loophole allows the city to fly other flags if the council unanimously approves it.
Council member Rhonda Bolton opposed the measure, NBC News reported.
“It sets a tone,” she said, according to the station. “If people think it’s OK or it becomes normalized to display bigotry towards a particular group, then folks are going to crawl out of their rock and do bad stuff.”
“Enshrining discrimination fuels division,” a spokesperson for the LGBTQ advocacy organization GLAAD told the station in an email, agreeing with Bolton. “Pride flags show LGBTQ people, youth and our allies that they are welcome.”
Huntington Beach is about a 40-mile drive south from Los Angeles.
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