Mayor of Salisbury, Md. is the Grinch who stole Pride
Salisbury is a small town on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, probably best known for its university of about 7,000 undergraduate students.
It’s also home to a robust and growing Pride celebration. But this will mark the first time in five years that a Pride flag will not fly at city hall for Pride month, as the Blade reported last week. “The administration’s position on the PFLAG kick-off is very simple,” Mayor Randolph Taylor said to the Blade. “That is, to be neutral.
Neutrality is not to be interpreted as anything else but simply that — being neutral.“ (PFLAG has served as an organizer of Salisbury Pride events.) Nicole Hollywood, an official with PFLAG Salisbury, told the Blade the group received an email from the city informing them of the change. “We simply got an email saying that ‘we’re evaluating the use of city assets for cultural events,’ and ‘we don’t feel it’s appropriate moving forward to hang flags that represent special interest groups.’” So Salisbury’s LGBTQ residents now constitute a “special interest group” rather than a minority community facing growing backlash, hatred, and discrimination in a rural part of the state?
This lame, ham-handed excuse barely disguises the cowardice, homophobia, and transphobia at play here. No elected public official should be “neutral” when it comes to the rights, dignity, and equality of their constituents.