During the fall of 2024, countless city halls nationwide are discussing whether or not pride flags—different flags that represent sexuality and gender of a specific group of people—should be allowed to hang outside of facilities. Board members from San Diego’s county and school district start to discuss if they should hang pride flags.
According to the article “Pride Flag Controversy Hits City Halls in San Diego County” written by Priya Sridhar—an NBC news reporter—Republican La Mesas city council member Laura Lothian, requested for only government flags to be flown at the City Hall. This created a controversial debate, which resulted in more than 40 public commenters disagreeing with Lothian’s proposition. In her message, she wrote “it’s not your place to use City Hall, the people’s house, the people’s taxpayer-funded pole for your political messaging.”
People disagreed with Lothian requests, believing that it may make certain groups feel unwelcome. One of the arguments included how many feel pride flags should be raised in front of facilities to show that communities support people and how they identify.
Further mentioned by “Carlsbad City Council caves and flies Pride Flag” written by KUSI Newsroom, in other areas like Carlsbad city council members voted on changing their policy to allow memorial flags to be flown outside of the City Hall—including the Pride flag. Three of five city council members voted yes in allowing pride flags outside of City Hall, while the other two voted no. Priya Bhat-Patel stated her belief that flying memorial flags is “a symbol of hope and acceptance and ensuring that they feel that they actually belong and so many of these commemorative flags are about, whether it’s about marginalized communities or celebrating and honoring our prisoners of war.”
Bhat-Patel was one of the three city council members in Carlsbad who voted yes to having pride flags outside of their facility. Bhat-Patel’s point of view for voting yes to this debate was that these flags are influenced by how it will symbolize the initial support and acceptance to those who might not feel like they are accepted by others around them.
She believes that “other cities need to step up their game when it comes to being solution-oriented” meaning city councils need to be addressing problems like homelessness over discussing pride flags, “it actually sends a strong signal to communities about whether or not they’re supported and accepted by their governments.” Taking away the priority of the pride flags communicates to the LGBTQ+ community that they are not supported.
Mayor Gloria who is part of the LGBTQ+ community strongly feels that the constant discussion on which flags should be hung is unnecessary. There are other real problems in the world today that should be discussed as they are having an effect on countries globally. Continuing this heated debate, Chula Vista schools district starts to vote on whether they choose to or not to l hang pride flags outside their schools.
In the article “Chula Vista Elementary School District to raise Pride Flag” by Richard Allyn, source Nadia Kean-Ayub a political speaker shared her reasoning for voting yes that pride flags should be hung up. “This is not a political stance,” said supporter Nadia Kean-Ayub. “It’s a human one: doing this will not make anyone gay. There is no room for hate in this country. We need to teach our kids love, compassion and tolerance.”
This debate will affect highschool students—even BVH. Hanging up pride flags would show that we are in support of the LGBTQ community when they may not feel supported in other places. On the other hand if these flags are hung up peoples religion, culture and beliefs may be affected. There is a risk that comes with the final decision of this debate.
