Pride flag honoring LGBTQ+ flies over LA City Hall for the first time
Image: themuseumofmodernart/Instagram
LOS ANGELES – Mayor Karen Bass has signed an ordinance unanimously approved by the City Council that will allow for the LGBTQ+ Pride Flag to be raised at City Hall and elsewhere in the Civic Center during the month of June.
“I’m proud to have signed this historic motion to fly the Pride Flag over City Hall,” Bass said in a statement issued early Saturday. “Our message to the rest of the country and to the world is clear — now more than ever, we must stand together.
“I want to thank Councilman Tim McOsker and the rest of City Council for working together to get this done. We know the harm that discrimination and hate brings and I’m proud that in Los Angeles, we accept our LGBTQIA+ community with open arms.”
The Los Angeles City Council approved the new policy Friday on a 12-0 vote to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community during Pride Month, which is celebrated in June.
Council members Tim McOsker, John Lee and Kevin de León were absent during the vote.
On Tuesday, council members instructed the City Attorney’s office to prepare an ordinance to update the current flag regulations. Council members wanted to change the policy to ensure the Progress Pride Flag – a version of the Pride Flag that some LGBTQ+ advocates say is more inclusive – gets flown in time for Pride Month. The monthlong celebration commemorates lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender pride, which began after the Stonewall riots, a series of gay liberation protests in 1969 in New York City.
Council members McOsker, Monica Rodriguez, Traci Park, Hugo Soto-Martinez and Bob Blumenfield introduced a motion last year seeking to raise the Progress Pride Flag at City Hall, City Hall East, City Hall South and other city facilities where the American, California and city flags are displayed during the month of June.
The City Charter, section 7.66, prohibits flags other than the American, California and city flags from being raised at City Hall or any other city facilities. The council members introduced the motion in June 2023, but were too late to raise the flag that year.
Last year, the county Board of Supervisors voted to raise the Progress Pride Flag at several government buildings.
The decision comes at a time when some Southland communities are moving in the opposite direction.
In May, the Downey City Council enacted a “neutral flag” policy on a 3-2 vote, taking down the Pride Flag that had previously flown for three years at City Hall.
In March, more than 58 percent of voters in Huntington Beach approved a ban on nongovernmental flags, including those for Pride Month, being flown on city property.
At least two California school districts, in Temecula and the Bay Area community of Sunol, have also banned Pride Flags.
The first known Pride Flag debuted at the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade in June 1978. At the encouragement of gay activist Harvey Milk, artist Gilbert Baker designed the flag to symbolize the value and dignity of the gay community.
The original Pride Flag depicted multicolored stripes similar to a rainbow. A 2018 re-design by graphic designer Daniel Quasar added black, brown and pink stripes to the classic Rainbow Flag to place a greater emphasis on “inclusion and progression” and became known as the Progress Pride Flag.
In 2015, the White House lit up with rainbow colors following the US. Supreme Court’s landmark Obergefell v. Hodges ruling that guarantees a constitutional right to same sex-marriage.
In June 2019, Gov. Gavin Newsom requested that the Pride flag be flown on the main flagpole at the State Capitol building in commemoration of LGBTQ+ Pride Month — marking the first time in state history that had occurred.
But historians say a Pride Flag was previously flown at the state Capitol on Oct. 11, 1990 for Coming Out Day, reportedly the first time such a flag was flown at a state capitol building in the US. (CNS)
