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Reprinted from The Orlando Sentinel, June 2, 1998.
Gays Win Right To Hang Banners
By Sherri M. Owens
of The Sentinel Staff
As more than 300 people packed Orlando City Hall, council members Monday decided that
rainbow flags can fly from light posts in downtown Orlando throughout June, National Gay
Pride Month.
About 30 people gave impassioned pleas for and against the flags as about 50 protesters
gathered outside.
The flags were expected to be mounted Monday night.
As a result of the controversy, no other applications from groups wanting to fly flags
from city posts will be considered until a task force reviews the policy that governs such
requests.
The vote followed the recommendations of two city advisory groups -- the Development
Review Committee and the Downtown Development Board. Those boards have said the flags
should fly and that a moratorium be established.
"We all find ourselves in an awkward, difficult, even painful situation over
this," Orlando Mayor Glenda Hood said. "But having mutual respect is so very
important."
Council member Don Ammerman was the only opponent.
"I don't think public property is the appropriate place for public displays of a
symbol of a particular political cause," Ammerman said, adding that none of his
constituents had called or written him in support of flying the flags.
"I may very well be in the minority, but I'm not fearful of that. We should be
doing what the community supports, and I don't see that community support," he said.
Employees of the Watermark, a newspaper that publishes articles of interest to gay and
lesbian readers, initiated the flag idea. They raised about $15,000 to buy about 720 flags
and pay city workers to hang and later remove them from 363 poles.
The flags have multicolored stripes with no writing.
City attorney Scott Gabrielson warned the council that a vote against the flags would
likely be successfully challenged in court.
"We have a duty as a city to apply laws uniformly," he said.
About 1,000 people phoned City Hall to express their opinions, spokesman Jim DeSimone
said, and so many people showed up for the meeting that council chambers and an overflow
room with televised proceedings were standing room only.
Many opponents cited religion as their reason for objecting to the flags.
"This is antithetical to all that Orlando represents," said the Rev. Randolph
Bracey, pastor of the New Covenant Baptist Church. He said the Bible teaches that
homosexuality is wrong. "It's debauchery, plain and simple."
Proponents, however, called for tolerance. "This is really about hate," said
Benjamin Markeson of Orlando. "There can be only one appropriate response to hatred,
and that's open repudiation."
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