A Republican city councilman in Louisiana is crafting a bill to ban the gay-pride rainbow flag from being flown on public buildings after receiving a complaint from a local veteran.
City-Parish Councilman Andy Naquin began working on a proposal that would limit the flags that can be flown on government buildings after receiving a complaint from Korean War veteran Ray Green who said that he was offended when he saw the gay-pride flag flying in Girard Park, which is on Lafayette government property, following the Supreme Court ruling on the Defense of Marriage Act and California's Proposition 8,
The Daily Advertiser reports.
"I had to agree with him," Naquin said. "Government flagpoles really should be meant to fly only government flags."
Naquin told The Daily Advertiser that he is working on a proposal with City-Parish Attorney Mike Hebert on a city ordinance that would limit the flags that could be flown on public buildings to American, Louisiana, Acadian/Louisiana Consolidated Government flags, and, maybe, Mardi Gras flags.
"I did not go overseas and fight for our country so that we could come back and be subject to something like that," Green told The Daily Advertiser. "Several of us [veterans] feel that the flying of this flag is a poke in the eye of a way of life."
Amanda Kelley, president of the Acadiana OUTspoken Alliance, a support group for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transsexual community in the area said that the rainbow flag was flown to celebrate National Pride Month and in celebration of the Supreme Court decision.
"That, to me, seems like a violation of freedom of speech," Kelley said of the proposal. "It wasn't intended to insult or hurt anyone."
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