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
We’re having a similar situation in our public schools. It started with schools being asked to serve foods that Muslims could enjoy too. This is fair and understandable. A good 10 years later, it’s hard not to have to offer vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free alternatives. This is mayne also fair if you’re paying for it (?) but when it is a publicly funded organization it’s expensive at the cost of all of us. It’s the principle of opening up a little and can’t close it up again even when for reason
How DARE our tax dollars be used to feed Kids! Allergies are FAKE! It’s Peanut Butter Monday!
No I think you misunderstand. I love and expect tax (money not dollars) to go into feeding kids. It’s just that you need to set a line somewhere. I live in a country where edubation and medic care is free. You get paid for taking a free education. Its perfectly fine with me. But if you’re forced to serve 4 different meals in order to satisfy everyone, it weakens the system for everyone. In any way it’s an example of setting standards for all. You can’t accommodate for one and not for all.
So, would you be in favour of serving only vegetarian or vegan meals, then, which a larger portion of the population could eat?
If the majority of people needing serving, were vegetarias or vegans, then yes. But i don’t see why you keep pecking at this example, when the argument is about the public organisation not being able to differentiate on their treatment of the public. This is not about feeding. Its about not being able to say one flag is ok for the town hall to use, but an other one is not. I think its a fair point!
… But, you brought this example up? :(
To argue against organisation being forced to accommodate for all needs and preferences. It’s not about feeding children. It’s about the public system not being about to support one minority and not the other be it in food preferences, disabilities, choice of transportation or anything really
LMAO
You seriously believe the shit that you wrote. This is simultaneously sad and worrying.
As someone else pointed out all of those dietary restrictions can be due to allergies, I think it would be pretty fucked up to fund lunch for students but not allow those with allergies to get lunch at school. Even if only one student at the school has a specific diet that needs to be catered too, that wouldn’t be different than having one student that was blind being given the same opportunities at the public school in my view, and whatever small cost it might increase to do this is worth it to properly feed children.
You describe the sliding slope perfectly. I’d argue that the state should offer cash support for people with allergies like this. But you can’t expect all schools to prepare sepperate dishes for any allergies (be it gluten, shellfish, nuts etc) and on top of this to chosen preferences like vegetarian, vegans etc. That’s how our (I live in Scandinavia) accommodate for children (and adults) with disabilities. People are offered help for what the need help with bit don’t offer the same helt for everyone. My example is not against treating others well. It’s about not discriminating. You can’t treat one well and not everyone else
I agree that a school doing each individual students meal like that would be inefficient, and yeah it’s better if you have a rare allergy or condition to just prepare food yourself haha. I think there are larger groups that can be recognized that have specific diets like kosher, halal, vegetarian etc that are not so rare that it isn’t a massive undertaking to have that as well. Maybe like if a certain percentage of students have a diet the school would prepare that.
I am not that much into school diets. But I know there is more to it than meets the eye. They, as far as I know, consider energy intake, vitamins, where the products are sourced and also try to effecrivate purchases so that they can maintain a budget. But again. The example was only to illustrate that you have to set a line somewhere, and decide who you can accommodate for or not. Not accommodating for any is the easiest way not to have to explain.
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I am not against people making their own choices. But expecting the public system to accommodate for said choices, risks draining the wellfair system. I understand that this may be difficult to explain to people from different countries but living in a country where almost everyone can expect help for anything in their life, adding “autonomic preferences” that cost the system even more, is not viable.
What I’m trying to explain is, that you can’t differentiate once you open up for one
School lunches “risk draining the welfare system?”
If your populace requires different accommodations then you meet them, that’s why taxes are paid. If you’re not meeting the expectations of some members of the populace, then they should selectively be allowed to skip tax payment allotments to you.
Well - this is where we obviously dissagree. I don’t believe that a system can be expected to accomodate for any personal prefference or need. I do believe that it should try, but there are also considerations about the costs not affecting the level of service offered to the genneral public.
What are you on about? A representative or democratic system is made for its constituents, and the ideology of the Pride Flag is supported by the U.S. Constitution. There’s no issue here other than religious fundamentalism against gays and trans etc., which actually is explicitly prohibited by the U.S. constitution because technically the U.S. is not a theocracy.