Town votes overwhelmingly in favor of flying Progress Pride flags

The residents of Williamstown, Massachusetts voted 175-90 to pass a bylaw allowing the Progress Pride flag to be flown on town flag poles. The vote occurred at a city board meeting and comes at a time when other cities have banned rainbow-colored Pride flags being flown from government buildings.

Last Thursday, the board of the 7,513-person town debated amending a bylaw on the town’s flag policies. The board accepted comments from local residents about whether the amendment should allow the flag which especially recognizes transgender people and people of color in the LGBTQ+ community.

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The town gave in to the mayor’s request last year, but this year they chose a new path.

“To many, the flag is a symbol that, in our town, they belong,” said Jack Has, a member of the Mount Greylock Regional High School’s Gender Sexuality Alliance. He was one of eight speakers who commented in support of the flags, according to iberkshires.com.

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Another supporter, Justin Adkins, said he felt like the only out transgender person in the city when he moved to Williamstown in 2007. Since then, more LGBTQ+ families have moved into the town because they consider it a welcoming community, Adkins noted.

“Most people, when I moved here, had never met a trans person,” Adkins said. “Today, that is not the case. Today, many people in this room are free to say who they are.

“LGBTQ-plus youth still face a world where their basic being is questioned and legislated.… Flying a flag is, really, the least we can do,” Adkins added.

Opponents of the bylaw worried that amending the bylaw will eventually cause many people to request flags advocating for their particular causes, like flags to “Free Palestine,” “Back the Blue” (meaning police), or the Black Lives Matter anti-racist movement.

“You have the right — every single group in this town has the right to put up any flag you want,” said longtime elderly resident Robert McCarthy. “You can put it on your home, on your lawn, on your business. I encourage everyone who has an agenda to fly a flag. Let’s keep the American flag, the POW/MIA flag alone, and if you want to fly your own flags, that’s wonderful, but not on municipal poles.”

The town’s vote came at a time when other cities are voting to ban the flags from government poles. In March, the residents in Huntington Beach, California voted to ban Pride flags on city property. In January, the town of Enfield, Connecticut also banned the flag from being flown on town-owned buildings saying it could eventually lead to allowing terrorist groups to fly their flags.

However, many cities allow their government spaces to fly the Pride flag. In January, the town of Norwich, Ontario in Canada voted to reverse its Pride fag ban.

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