Most municipalities in Marin County have agreed to fly the LGBTQ flag this month for Pride Month, but some officials are concerned about setting difficult precedents.
San Rafael City Hall and the Marin County Civic Center have raised the flag for a few years now, but other local jurisdictions just recently received a request for the symbolic support. The councils in Corte Madera, Novato, Larkspur, Sausalito and Tiburon approved hoisting the rainbow banner on municipal flagpoles.
Corte Madera, Novato, Tiburon and Larkspur also updated their flag policies to require councils to approve or deny requests to fly a particular commemorative flag.
Larkspur, however, was more hesitant than most councils. It voted 4-1 to defer both the flag policy and pride flag decisions at its meeting last month but ultimately passed both unanimously at its meeting on Wednesday.
Councilman Scot Candell said he is in favor of flying the pride flag, but passing a policy that would allow the council to determine whether it should fly a particular flag on a city-owned flag pole is a “slippery slope.”
“Maybe it’s a pro-Palestinian thing, or a pro-Israeli thing,” Candell said at the meeting on May 25. “I mean, there’s just there’s just so many variations that could put us as a council in a very awkward position of basically voting on community values.”
The request to fly the pride flag originated from Dana Van Gorder, executive director of the Spahr Center, a Corte Madera nonprofit serving the LGBTQ community. Van Gorder, in a letter asking for the support, said young people who identify as LGBTQ are struggling with discrimination, rejection and suicidal thoughts.
Addressing Candell’s comment, Van Gorder said that in a survey of more than 250 people who identify as LGBTQ, a majority of people said Marin feels like a “don’t ask, don’t tell” environment.
“There was minimal level of support and really kind of a similar desire to what I’m hearing from councilmember Candell, that we just kind of go away because we’re creating a problem,” he said. “We resolved ourselves to try to make it clear that key institutions in this county do, in fact, support our community just as they support the full diversity of our community, whether it’s for the Latinx community or the African American community.”
City Attorney Sky Woodruff said the flag policy update is straightforward.
“It’s pretty standard for these types of policies that any flying of a commemorative flag by the city is an expression of the City Council speech,” he said.
During the meeting on Wednesday, most callers who addressed the topic supported the request.
“Flying the flag is a powerful way to celebrate the contributions of LGBTQ+ people to the social and economic fabric of Marin County,” said Sally Relova, a Corte Madera resident.
San Rafael resident Bobby Moske agreed. He said it’s unfair to compare the request to fly the pride flag to possible requests to fly Black Lives Matter, pro-Israeli or pro-Palestinian flags.
“It’s not really legitimate because LGBTQ is a community. It’s not a cause. It’s not a movement,” Moske said. “It represents human dignity and equality for all peoples.”
Larkspur resident James Holmes, however, said the city should not fly the pride flag at City Hall or update its flag policy. He said there is no local demand and the Spahr Center is trying to make the suburban city more like San Francisco.
“Displaying the flag would also be an anachronism, which would clash with the character of our historic structure,” Holmes said. “And, significantly, seeing this flag at City Hall could surprise and disquiet many people due to the flag’s unique dual significance as a symbol of not only civil rights but of hedonism.”
Corte Madera resident Jana Barkin, who said her son is transgender, responded to Holmes’ comment.
“It makes me really sad, and is exactly why we need to fly the flag, when we hear certain comments calling a normal variation of being human hedonistic,” Barkin said.
In Tiburon, the Town Council passed a flag policy with a 4-1 vote and approved the LGBTQ flag request unanimously. Councilwoman Alice Fredericks cast the dissenting vote on the flag policy, citing potential First Amendment issues.
“Our past practice has been to keep flag poles for government flags,” Fredericks said. “Partially, that’s because we don’t want to get into the conversation whether a particular position or display is appropriate. … It would be better suited to pick a public place for these kinds of causes and positions.”
Mayor Holli Their disagreed. She said it’s not a matter of free speech, but rather a civil rights issue.
Vice Mayor Jon Welner asked: “If this were a proposal that had come through our diversity committee, would we be looking at it differently?”
“We’re supportive of a Juneteenth celebration, we’re talking about how to be inclusive,” he said. “We all unanimously supported a resolution in favor of diversity, inclusion and anti-racism and anti-hate, and to me, this is just an extension.”
“I don’t view it as a political issue at all,” he said. “I think it’s a civil rights issue and I’m just really supportive of it.”
The Mill Valley City Council will consider a request to proclaim June as Pride Month at its meeting on Wednesday. The San Anselmo City Council is set to vote on its flag policy and the request to fly the pride flag at its meeting on Thursday.
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