this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2024
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A Connecticut town council voted to ban the LGBTQ+ pride flag in government buildings almost immediately after coming under Republican control.

The Enfield Town Council voted in a meeting Monday to ban all flags from flying at government buildings save for the United States, Connecticut state, and military flags. The new policy, which went through with a vote of 6-5, replaces a 2022 policy that allowed the rainbow flag to fly during Pride Month in June.

While some the council members pushing the policy claimed to do so as a way to remain "neutral," Councilor At-Large Gina Cekala, who voted against the measure, accused them of directly targeting the LGBTQ+ community and Pride flag.

“I think the real reason is you don’t want that Pride flag up on this town hall,” she said, “which is absolutely disgusting."

Tom Tyler, the interim town attorney, claimed at one point that if the the Pride flag was allowed to be flown, “ISIS could come in and want to display one, the IRA…basically anybody. You’d have to be content neutral and let everybody." He then went off-topic to accuse schools of trying to indoctrinate students with “transgender ideology.”

The decision came as a betrayal to many of the town's residents, including Brandon Jewell of PFLAG Enfield, who noted that two of the Republicans voting to ban flags previously voted in favor of the 2022 policy that allowed the Pride displays.

read more: https://www.advocate.com/news/connecticut-pride-flag-ban-isis

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[–] rivermonster@lemmy.world 90 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Fox, OAN, NewsMax, etc. Those are gateways to the Christian Taliban... I mean ISIS. Same thing.

[–] FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world 42 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Y’all Qaeda is a bigger threat to the world than any Afghanis ever were.

[–] AceFuzzLord@lemm.ee 5 points 10 months ago

Y'all Qaeda

That got me laughing to the point of having a coughing fit.

[–] butt_mountain_69420@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago

retards of a feather flock together

[–] Delta_V@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

its ironic that vanilla isis is talking shit about original flavor isis, trying to imply that their shared boogie man wants anything to do with either kind of crazy religious right wingnuts

[–] EndOfLine@lemm.ee 57 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The most amazing part is that they've resolved all of the more important issues and have the time to consider what flags should be allowed to fly at government buildings.

Right? I mean how negligent would it be to prioritize passing an approved flags list while issues that affect their constituents still need attention.

[–] Carighan@lemmy.world 23 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Plus, notice the absolute freedom these people are enforcing. Republicans, truly the people who still take freedom and self-determination serious! Not like those Democrafts who always want to legislate everything and have rules and bans and shit! Just let people do what they personally want, the republican way.

(Can we please just shove them all into the ocean already? Nothing of any value will be lost and we also reduce the carbon footprint a little bit.)

[–] msage@programming.dev 2 points 10 months ago

Oh, the carbon footprint will be drastic.

I suspect those are the people who shun any climate science, and instead will do the opposite of anything told to do.

[–] geekworking@lemmy.world 32 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It must be great to live in a place that has so few real problems that the town can waste time with bullshit culture war distractions.

[–] danielf@aussie.zone 28 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Oh I'm sure they have plenty of problems, but it's probably only minorities and poor people who experience them so who cares!

[–] XTL@sopuli.xyz 14 points 10 months ago

Noisy "news" like this are actually really good at hiding a lot of real problems. Especially chronic ones that are "old news".

[–] fidodo@lemmy.world 24 points 10 months ago (1 children)

They're just stringing together words at random at this point.

[–] gapbetweenus@feddit.de 11 points 10 months ago (2 children)
[–] arin@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I'd take hallucinating ai over conservative official any day. At least the AI isn't trying to fuck the children

[–] gapbetweenus@feddit.de 3 points 10 months ago

You might have a point.

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[–] Linkerbaan@lemmy.world 23 points 10 months ago

"ISIS is gay."

Proceeds to hoist a military flag

Is this town a modern warfare 2 lobby?

[–] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 23 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I hope no one emails or calls him about this issue by going to this link

https://www.enfield-ct.gov/directory.aspx?EID=699

Please please no one use *67 before dialing. Please no one go to the million or so temporary email boxes and email him. Please please don't make your voice heard and stand up for a minority being attacked in our midst. Remember to say nothing about the oppression of x unless you are a member of x. Please do not set an alarm on your phone as a reminder to call once a day. Please go gently into that good night and let the fascists win by a million cuts.

[–] NegativeInf@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago

Thank you for that. It is so important that small evil people are allowed to quitely harm the world without being called out on it.

Also no one go to his person website and do it

https://tylerandtyler.com/contact-us/

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.world 19 points 10 months ago

Religious Fascists claiming non-Fascist symbols are a gateway for other Religious Fascists.

Satire is dead!

[–] sirdorius@programming.dev 18 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

ban all flags from flying at government buildings save for the United States, Connecticut state, and military flags

Ah yes, military flags, very neutral. It's great that conservatives are super neutral and yet they shit on people's desire to not promote war, imperialism and genocide.

[–] ComradePorkRoll@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago

But people died for those flags! /s

Pretty silly to die for a piece of cloth.

[–] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 15 points 10 months ago

Tom Tyler, the interim town attorney, claimed at one point that if the the Pride flag was allowed to be flown, “ISIS could come in and want to display one, the IRA…basically anybody. You’d have to be content neutral and let everybody." He then went off-topic to accuse schools of trying to indoctrinate students with “transgender ideology.”

"This has nothing to do with it being a Pride flag! Now I'm going to go on a transphobic rant which, as I just said, has nothing to do with this!"

[–] hpca01@programming.dev 14 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Probably should sue the town for violating 1A rights.

Right wingers love to pull that one out of their arse, would be funny to see them trying to cope with that.

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[–] carl_dungeon@lemmy.world 14 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Anyone that goes through that much effort to ban something that doesn’t harm them is hiding something.

[–] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

We need to start bounties on this, maybe via Kickstarter. Anyone who can get pictures of Tom Tyler getting head at a truck stop glory hole wins money. Cold hard cash.

[–] Thcdenton@lemmy.world 14 points 10 months ago

Lets all just settle on the satan flag 😁

[–] TheDoozer@lemmy.world 13 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Ugggh, so I really don't want to be on their side with this, but... I kind of agree that the only flags that should fly in government buildings is US, state, and military flags. There also shouldn't be religious wall decorations like the Ten Commandments or crosses. There shouldn't be Confederate flags. There shouldn't be state university flags. It's a government building, and it should represent everyone equally, and not promote any cause, group, or religion except explicitly what is part of the government.

I reeeeeeally don't like the reason they want to ban it, but I think it would be great for every government building to adopt those standards.

[–] rockSlayer@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago

I think the government has an obligation to represent oppressed minorities, including their symbology when appropriate.There is no such thing as neutrality, and even if it wasn't for regressive reasons it would still be a regressive policy.

[–] Ephera@lemmy.ml 6 points 10 months ago

IMHO, the crucial difference is that the LGBTQ pride flag isn't saying the gays are the best. It's merely asking for equal treatment, for human rights. A government which does not agree with those goals, which does not work for the equal treatment and human rights of all its citizen, is being partial in precisely the way you describe.

[–] kemsat@lemmy.world 12 points 10 months ago

The irony is thick.

[–] HawlSera@lemm.ee 12 points 10 months ago (1 children)

..ISIS, which I'm not sure even exists anymore, a terrorist organization infamous for among other things murdering gay people.... Is Pro-Pride Flags?

Son, what kind of shit are you on?

[–] cosmicrookie@lemmy.world 11 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Not sure how you came to this, unless you only read the title. According to the actual post content, the argument is, that if you allow one you can't discriminate and will have to allow any.

[–] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 5 points 10 months ago

Immediately followed by a transphobic rant that I'm sure was completely unrelated.

[–] Gabu@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago (18 children)

The braindead, completely deranged "argument".

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[–] AshMan85@lemmy.world 11 points 10 months ago (1 children)

So that is a violation of the first amendment

[–] mrcleanup@lemmy.world 17 points 10 months ago

Not necessarily, since this is a government building it would be the government's speech, and they clearly don't want to fly it. They aren't preventing people from flying it on their personal property.

That said, there's a clear likelihood that this is purely anti-lgbtq sentiment in action.

[–] moitoi@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I'm figuring out how you come with these words together. I don't know. It's a new level of intellectual gymnastics.

[–] pinkdrunkenelephants@lemmy.cafe 2 points 10 months ago

It's just an excuse to ban LGBTQ+ expression, that's all, and the bigots know it'll work.

[–] starman2112@sh.itjust.works 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (4 children)

It's really easy if you rtfa

Tom Tyler, the interim town attorney, claimed at one point that if the the Pride flag was allowed to be flown, “ISIS could come in and want to display one, the IRA…basically anybody. You’d have to be content neutral and let everybody."

I don't agree with him in the slightest, but it's not like he's saying that being gay makes you a terrorist or something

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[–] rabiddolphin@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago

Does ISIS raise property value?

[–] rivermonster@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

LOL, spit take. I appreciate you.

[–] spiderhamster@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago
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