this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2023
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Politics
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What is a 'private cause' though? Because to me this feels like a very public issue. While it may seem like LGBT rights have only strengthened each year, there is currently an unprecedented level of effort being put towards disenfranchising and stifling queer and trans communities. Even if you're not part of those communities yourself, it's a near certainty that somebody you know and care about is. There's a very large and diverse subset of the American populace who is being targeted by these anti-lgbt actions.
During the civil rights movement I would have had no problem with the white house flying a flag in solidarity with black Americans, and I don't have a problem with them flying the pride flag now.
It drives me crazy that LGBT people existing is considered some kind of "political agenda" by some people.
Private is probably not the correct word, but flying the LGBTQ+ flag is probably a for of capital 'S' Speech, i.e. the thing the 1st amendement of the US Bill of rights is supposed to protect.
To what extent should government institutions engage is Speech is a question without an easy answer.
In this case the LGBTQ+ flag represents, in part, common sense civil liberties and protections for a community. Unequivocally a good thing, and to say otherwise is bigotry.
However the undeniable goodness of the Speech does not necessarily mean it is a type of speech we want government institutions to engage in. One method to illustrate this is to replace the clearly positive flag with a clearly negative one, say a nazi flag.
I'd expect most people here would have a problem with the dmv flying a nazi flag.
So we simply say that government institutions can only fly good flags. The problem is someone has to decide which flags are good. It may seem obvious which is which, but unless we put it to a vote, we'll need a committee or a single person to make the call. And some people are evil, and would falsely claim the Nazi flag is the good one, and now we're in a bad spot again.
So like all things there's a lot of annoying nuance to be dealt with and sucks when it should be easy to just allow good supportive speech.
I think that you're somewhat asking the government to be apolitical when you do that. Every flag is speech, even the American flag is speech. The government constantly speaks to us.
I'd argue that the government should be allowed it's speech. Every time the government stops speaking to you is when bad things happen.