When I returned to Massachusetts after a quarter century sojourn teaching on both coasts and in the middle of the continent where North to South I-35 intersects East to West I-240, I left a place that was far behind my home state when it came to GLBT rights and general political attitudes that made the state the Reddest in the country where the Bible trumps the Constitution when it comes to legislation.

I first lived on Cape Cod where I was cautioned by friends that as liberal as the state was, Cape Cod was a conservative bastion. As one person explained, it is Oklahoma with water on all three sides. With a subtle Klan presence in Sandwich, the description was not off the mark as experience would show.

I then landed in New Bedford by way of a decision to look for an inexpensive apartment, especially in relation to Cape Cod rents, which, instead of remaining just a choice of convenience, turned out to be the correct choice because where the apartment I live in is located and the city of New Bedford being so rife with history within walking distance in any direction, it was a great place to end up by a fluke (no whale reference intended).

It took a while in the first months and some years after my return to get used to hearing people, both Gay and not, routinely including references to things Gay in their conversations where in my last abode, things Gay were whispered, encoded, and relatively underground for protection of rights, jobs, and lives.  Hearing someone refer to his husband or she to her wife in casual conversation in mixed company was a far cry from talking about a roommate or winking when saying spouse where marriage equality was still in the future for the rest of the country. Here I met people married for years after Massachusetts grew up and accepted a class of its citizenry it should have already had.

It was like returning home years after an alien abduction.

One of the most used tactics in Oklahoma, the only state with Jim Crow written in the State’s Constitution, to refuse to acknowledge that non-“Christians”, its selective brand, should just be happy they are allowed to exist no matter how pitiful the conditions forced on them by the “religious”, was the reliance on false equivalence.

The objection was to the very idea that Gay students should be able to hear positive things about people like themselves throughout history so they will know they too could be positive contributors to society as opposed to only being mentioned in negative, often condemnatory terms.

You could not say or show anything positive, but if you rejected Gay people, the floor was yours.

According to this approach, allowing positive information about Gay people would open the door for Nazi, KKK, and any manner of white supremacy information.

This had ignored the reality that presenting positive, self-affirming information, even if just available without consciously drawing attention to it was not equivalent to groups who deny rights, attempt to remove them, or kill as many people as you can to cancel them.

This got so ridiculous in Oklahoma City that a school administrator using this approach finally settled on ending his refusal to even consider the idea of making it clear without a doubt that sexual orientation and gender identity should be included clearly in district policies on bullying, harassment, and nondiscrimination by telling me that if we included Gay students in those policies, the district would have to include all kids.

I did not have a problem with that, and even suggested language to that effect that could also be inserted in existing policies as written.

Now, that Oklahoma has reached the Eastern Shore of the Acushnet River.

Over time the school district had seen reason and beyond adding the words are more conscious and open about the existence of Gay students in the schools and have begun participating in the annual June Pride Parades in support of the people who just over 10 years ago it began to acknowledge existed.

Fairhaven is Oklahoma across the river.

Oklahoma, I can’t quit you.

Hoisting the Rainbow Pride Flag at city halls throughout the State of Massachusetts during June, all or part, has become a non-issue. In many towns and cities, it just happens. The members of the Gay Community might gather for the raising of the flag, but for the general population it is just one more, albeit the most colorful, flag flying in front of city and town halls. The battles around it were in the past.

However, in the town across the harbor, the Oklahoma argument against Gay equality reared its head when the three-member Board of Selectmen made it clear that the Pride flag has no place on the town hall flagpole because doing so would set a bad precedent.

The bad precedent?

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Yep,

The Pride flag could open the door to Hitler’s Iron Cross banner, the Confederate battle flag, and all sorts of fiscal and cultural mayhem.

As one Selectman explained,

“If we were to fly it, then somebody could come in and fly the Nazi flag and we were stuck with it. We could say no, but then we’d be sued.”

Went right to the false, but usefully scary false equivalence.

The “Progressive Pride” flag, the one with stripes to make the inclusion of Black, Brown, and Transgender people obvious to those who do not understand the Pride Flag’s spectrum of inclusion of all people, flew not too far from City Hall and there were no marches with people carrying torches. No one demanded that the establishment flying the flag in the town’s commercial center put up a Nazi or KKK flag.

The use of the Heckler Veto, the refusal to take the proper action because someone, somewhere, at some time may or may not complain, in this case is just a smoke screen to hide crass and open bigotry.

The Board’s explanation is based on the dismissive firmly held belief that people are so ignorant as to accept without question anything said with authority.

It is a traditional use of non-sequiturs favored by bigots.

The town’s attorney believes that if the board were to deny flying the flag of what he calls a “noxious group” after having flown the Pride Flag there could be “a potential issue”. He reveals in this statement his underlying opinion that the GLBT Community is merely a “noxious group” like the Klan or Nazis.

He didn’t ask what would happen if the knights of Columbus asked.

Precedent cases show that if a “noxious group” were to go after the town for flying the Pride Flag while refusing to fly theirs, they would lose.

In Massachusetts there have been three cases on this issue. One was in federal district court in 2018, the second in federal appeals court in 2019, and the third in federal appeals court in 2021 where it was decided that municipal speech is not the same as free speech and towns have the right to determine which speech it wants to use because federal courts have repeatedly ruled that “government speech” is not the same thing as “free speech” between private individuals.

Whatever flag is flown is the decision of the town government, so Fairhaven has no worries when it comes to court cases. They can simply explain why they do not hold Gay Rights and bigotry that leads to death as equal things.

Cities like Boston have the policy that bans the flying of flags deemed to be inappropriate or offensive in nature or those supporting discrimination, prejudice, or religious movements, the “Noxious Groups.”

The New Bedford policy states,

“Displaying the LGBTQ flag is considered government speech, and city government has the right to decide what message it wants to convey through government speech, such as the use of a city flagpole in this instance.”

But Fairhaven fears the Heckler veto with which Gay rights advocates are only too familiar. As in my case, in spite of the importance and life-saving benefits to students of positive information about GLBT people, someone, somewhere, at some time might, or might not have lodged a complaint, so in deference to a fictitious person who may or may not exist and who may or may not speak, what was best for students’ well-being, safety, and education was continually denied.

With this attitude, unless specifically targeting one group of its own towns people uniquely in the foolishness around the Pride flag, it is a wonder that the town’s government can accomplish anything as anything they do will have someone opposing it, and they don’t want a lawsuit.

Unless it is about one group of its townspeople because politics over people.

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