A Connecticut town council voted to ban the LGBTQ+ pride flag in government buildings almost immediately after coming under Republican control.

The Enfield Town Council voted in a meeting Monday to ban all flags from flying at government buildings save for the United States, Connecticut state, and military flags. The new policy, which went through with a vote of 6-5, replaces a 2022 policy that allowed the rainbow flag to fly during Pride Month in June.

While some the council members pushing the policy claimed to do so as a way to remain “neutral,” Councilor At-Large Gina Cekala, who voted against the measure, accused them of directly targeting the LGBTQ+ community and Pride flag.

“I think the real reason is you don’t want that Pride flag up on this town hall,” she said, “which is absolutely disgusting."

Tom Tyler, the interim town attorney, claimed at one point that if the the Pride flag was allowed to be flown, “ISIS could come in and want to display one, the IRA…basically anybody. You’d have to be content neutral and let everybody." He then went off-topic to accuse schools of trying to indoctrinate students with “transgender ideology.”

The decision came as a betrayal to many of the town’s residents, including Brandon Jewell of PFLAG Enfield, who noted that two of the Republicans voting to ban flags previously voted in favor of the 2022 policy that allowed the Pride displays.

read more: https://www.advocate.com/news/connecticut-pride-flag-ban-isis

  • rivermonster@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Fox, OAN, NewsMax, etc. Those are gateways to the Christian Taliban… I mean ISIS. Same thing.

  • EndOfLine@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    The most amazing part is that they’ve resolved all of the more important issues and have the time to consider what flags should be allowed to fly at government buildings.

    Right? I mean how negligent would it be to prioritize passing an approved flags list while issues that affect their constituents still need attention.

    • Carighan Maconar@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Plus, notice the absolute freedom these people are enforcing. Republicans, truly the people who still take freedom and self-determination serious! Not like those Democrafts who always want to legislate everything and have rules and bans and shit! Just let people do what they personally want, the republican way.

      (Can we please just shove them all into the ocean already? Nothing of any value will be lost and we also reduce the carbon footprint a little bit.)

      • msage@programming.dev
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        8 months ago

        Oh, the carbon footprint will be drastic.

        I suspect those are the people who shun any climate science, and instead will do the opposite of anything told to do.

  • geekworking@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    It must be great to live in a place that has so few real problems that the town can waste time with bullshit culture war distractions.

    • Daniel F.@aussie.zone
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      8 months ago

      Oh I’m sure they have plenty of problems, but it’s probably only minorities and poor people who experience them so who cares!

      • XTL@sopuli.xyz
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        8 months ago

        Noisy “news” like this are actually really good at hiding a lot of real problems. Especially chronic ones that are “old news”.

  • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    I hope no one emails or calls him about this issue by going to this link

    https://www.enfield-ct.gov/directory.aspx?EID=699

    Please please no one use *67 before dialing. Please no one go to the million or so temporary email boxes and email him. Please please don’t make your voice heard and stand up for a minority being attacked in our midst. Remember to say nothing about the oppression of x unless you are a member of x. Please do not set an alarm on your phone as a reminder to call once a day. Please go gently into that good night and let the fascists win by a million cuts.

  • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    “ISIS is gay.”

    Proceeds to hoist a military flag

    Is this town a modern warfare 2 lobby?

  • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Religious Fascists claiming non-Fascist symbols are a gateway for other Religious Fascists.

    Satire is dead!

  • sirdorius@programming.dev
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    8 months ago

    ban all flags from flying at government buildings save for the United States, Connecticut state, and military flags

    Ah yes, military flags, very neutral. It’s great that conservatives are super neutral and yet they shit on people’s desire to not promote war, imperialism and genocide.

  • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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    8 months ago

    Tom Tyler, the interim town attorney, claimed at one point that if the the Pride flag was allowed to be flown, “ISIS could come in and want to display one, the IRA…basically anybody. You’d have to be content neutral and let everybody." He then went off-topic to accuse schools of trying to indoctrinate students with “transgender ideology.”

    “This has nothing to do with it being a Pride flag! Now I’m going to go on a transphobic rant which, as I just said, has nothing to do with this!”

  • carl_dungeon@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Anyone that goes through that much effort to ban something that doesn’t harm them is hiding something.

    • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      We need to start bounties on this, maybe via Kickstarter. Anyone who can get pictures of Tom Tyler getting head at a truck stop glory hole wins money. Cold hard cash.

  • hpca01@programming.dev
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    8 months ago

    Probably should sue the town for violating 1A rights.

    Right wingers love to pull that one out of their arse, would be funny to see them trying to cope with that.

  • TheDoozer@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Ugggh, so I really don’t want to be on their side with this, but… I kind of agree that the only flags that should fly in government buildings is US, state, and military flags. There also shouldn’t be religious wall decorations like the Ten Commandments or crosses. There shouldn’t be Confederate flags. There shouldn’t be state university flags. It’s a government building, and it should represent everyone equally, and not promote any cause, group, or religion except explicitly what is part of the government.

    I reeeeeeally don’t like the reason they want to ban it, but I think it would be great for every government building to adopt those standards.

    • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I think the government has an obligation to represent oppressed minorities, including their symbology when appropriate.There is no such thing as neutrality, and even if it wasn’t for regressive reasons it would still be a regressive policy.

    • Ephera@lemmy.ml
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      8 months ago

      IMHO, the crucial difference is that the LGBTQ pride flag isn’t saying the gays are the best. It’s merely asking for equal treatment, for human rights. A government which does not agree with those goals, which does not work for the equal treatment and human rights of all its citizen, is being partial in precisely the way you describe.

  • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    …ISIS, which I’m not sure even exists anymore, a terrorist organization infamous for among other things murdering gay people… Is Pro-Pride Flags?

    Son, what kind of shit are you on?

    • cosmicrookie@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Not sure how you came to this, unless you only read the title. According to the actual post content, the argument is, that if you allow one you can’t discriminate and will have to allow any.

        • cosmicrookie@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          We’re having a similar situation in our public schools. It started with schools being asked to serve foods that Muslims could enjoy too. This is fair and understandable. A good 10 years later, it’s hard not to have to offer vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free alternatives. This is mayne also fair if you’re paying for it (?) but when it is a publicly funded organization it’s expensive at the cost of all of us. It’s the principle of opening up a little and can’t close it up again even when for reason

          • BigMacHole@lemm.ee
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            8 months ago

            How DARE our tax dollars be used to feed Kids! Allergies are FAKE! It’s Peanut Butter Monday!

            • cosmicrookie@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              No I think you misunderstand. I love and expect tax (money not dollars) to go into feeding kids. It’s just that you need to set a line somewhere. I live in a country where edubation and medic care is free. You get paid for taking a free education. Its perfectly fine with me. But if you’re forced to serve 4 different meals in order to satisfy everyone, it weakens the system for everyone. In any way it’s an example of setting standards for all. You can’t accommodate for one and not for all.

              • Chobbes@lemmy.world
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                8 months ago

                So, would you be in favour of serving only vegetarian or vegan meals, then, which a larger portion of the population could eat?

                • cosmicrookie@lemmy.world
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                  8 months ago

                  If the majority of people needing serving, were vegetarias or vegans, then yes. But i don’t see why you keep pecking at this example, when the argument is about the public organisation not being able to differentiate on their treatment of the public. This is not about feeding. Its about not being able to say one flag is ok for the town hall to use, but an other one is not. I think its a fair point!

            • cosmicrookie@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              I am not against people making their own choices. But expecting the public system to accommodate for said choices, risks draining the wellfair system. I understand that this may be difficult to explain to people from different countries but living in a country where almost everyone can expect help for anything in their life, adding “autonomic preferences” that cost the system even more, is not viable.

              What I’m trying to explain is, that you can’t differentiate once you open up for one

          • nifty@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            If your populace requires different accommodations then you meet them, that’s why taxes are paid. If you’re not meeting the expectations of some members of the populace, then they should selectively be allowed to skip tax payment allotments to you.

            • cosmicrookie@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              Well - this is where we obviously dissagree. I don’t believe that a system can be expected to accomodate for any personal prefference or need. I do believe that it should try, but there are also considerations about the costs not affecting the level of service offered to the genneral public.

              • nifty@lemmy.world
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                8 months ago

                What are you on about? A representative or democratic system is made for its constituents, and the ideology of the Pride Flag is supported by the U.S. Constitution. There’s no issue here other than religious fundamentalism against gays and trans etc., which actually is explicitly prohibited by the U.S. constitution because technically the U.S. is not a theocracy.

          • tocopherol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            8 months ago

            As someone else pointed out all of those dietary restrictions can be due to allergies, I think it would be pretty fucked up to fund lunch for students but not allow those with allergies to get lunch at school. Even if only one student at the school has a specific diet that needs to be catered too, that wouldn’t be different than having one student that was blind being given the same opportunities at the public school in my view, and whatever small cost it might increase to do this is worth it to properly feed children.

            • cosmicrookie@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              You describe the sliding slope perfectly. I’d argue that the state should offer cash support for people with allergies like this. But you can’t expect all schools to prepare sepperate dishes for any allergies (be it gluten, shellfish, nuts etc) and on top of this to chosen preferences like vegetarian, vegans etc. That’s how our (I live in Scandinavia) accommodate for children (and adults) with disabilities. People are offered help for what the need help with bit don’t offer the same helt for everyone. My example is not against treating others well. It’s about not discriminating. You can’t treat one well and not everyone else

              • tocopherol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                8 months ago

                I agree that a school doing each individual students meal like that would be inefficient, and yeah it’s better if you have a rare allergy or condition to just prepare food yourself haha. I think there are larger groups that can be recognized that have specific diets like kosher, halal, vegetarian etc that are not so rare that it isn’t a massive undertaking to have that as well. Maybe like if a certain percentage of students have a diet the school would prepare that.

                • cosmicrookie@lemmy.world
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                  8 months ago

                  I am not that much into school diets. But I know there is more to it than meets the eye. They, as far as I know, consider energy intake, vitamins, where the products are sourced and also try to effecrivate purchases so that they can maintain a budget. But again. The example was only to illustrate that you have to set a line somewhere, and decide who you can accommodate for or not. Not accommodating for any is the easiest way not to have to explain.

          • Gabu@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            LMAO

            You seriously believe the shit that you wrote. This is simultaneously sad and worrying.