WOW!! TRUMP ADMINISTRATION SETTLES AND AGREES TO REINSTATE PRIDE FLAG AT STONEWALL MONUMENT!
This really is a banner day from the front lines of the legal battle to save the soul of our democracy (yes, pun intended). First Trump’s lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal gets dismissed, and now the Trump administration *gives in* and *settles* the lawsuit over their removal of the Pride flag at the Stonewall Monument and agrees to restore it!!
For those not familiar, the Stonewall Monument commemorates the Stonewall riots that followed the New York City police raiding a gay bar that was located at the Stonewall Inn, in June of 1969. The Stonewall Monument is the first monument in the U.S. dedicated to LGBTQ+ rights. The area in which the Stonewall Inn sits, in Greenwich Village, was designated a national landmark in 2000. The inn itself was designated a New York City landmark in 2015. And in 2016 President Obama declared it a national monument.
According to the Complaint, “In 2022, after extensive advocacy by the LGBTQ+ community, the National Park Service (“NPS”) installed a flagpole inside the Stonewall National Monument to fly a Pride flag. The Pride flag, which generally consists of differently colored horizontal stripes representing a rainbow, has been and remains a widely recognized symbol of LGBTQ+ equality since the 1970’s.”
The raising of the Pride flag over a national monument was a Really Big Deal, and according to the Complaint “At the time, the NPS explained this watershed event – the first Pride flag flown permanently on federal lands – by pointing to “the significance of the rainbow flag to Stonewall National Monument and the community” and NPS’s commitment “to telling the complex and diverse histories of all Americans.”
But on February 9th of this year Trump’s National Park Service removed the flag, citing a supposed policy that allows only the American flag, Department of the Interior flags, and POW/MIA flags to be flown in national parks.
That is, of course, bullpucky. While the Department of Interior’s (DOI) own policy, outlined in a memorandum titled “Guidance on the Display and Flying of Non-Agency Flags and Pennants within
the National Park System” (included for Notes from the Front members) *does* say “Subject to the below exemptions, only the U.S. Flag, flags of the DOI, and the POW/MIA flag will be flown by the NPS in public spaces,” but guess what are included in “the below exemptions”? Flags that “provide historical context”!
A mere 8 days later, on February 17th, a lawsuit Complaint was filed against the National Park Service and others.
And less than two months after that, today, April 13th, a stipulated settlement was reached and filed with the Court! (Both the Complaint and the settlement are included for Notes from the Front members.) That the settlement is stipulated means that it has been agreed to by and between the parties *and* is filed with the Court, and that, when the Court endorses it, it has the weight and force of a court order.
The settlement says, among other things, that “Within seven (7) days of the filing of this Stipulation, NPS shall hang three equally sized, three feet by five feet flags on the flagpole at Stonewall. NPS will hang the American flag at the top of the flagpole in accordance with current guidance, and below the American flag, on either side, NPS will hang the rainbow Pride and NPS flags.”
Notes from the Front members: the Settlement, Complaint, and Memorandum are in your inbox now!
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P.S. If you actually read all the way to the bottom please leave a comment that includes the word “pride”. It will show me that my efforts aren’t in vain and that people actually *do* read these things, and it will drive those who just skim crazy wondering why everyone is talking about pride! ;~)
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