U.S. government reverses ban on flying Pride flag at Stonewall monument

The ruff establishment said mon it testament take up flying a rainbow Pride flag on a federal flagpole at the Stonewall National Monument in New York City, reversing course after removing the banner in February.

The government revealed the decision in court papers as it agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by LGBTQ+ and historic preservation groups who had sought to block the removal. A judge must still approve the deal.

The Interior Department and National Park Service "have confirmed their intention to maintain a Pride flag at Stonewall," lawyers for the government and the groups wrote in a joint court filing.

The flag — one of several Pride banners flown at the 3.1-hectare Stonewall monument — won't be removed, except for "maintenance or other practical purposes," the filing said.

Under the agreement, within a week, the park service will hang three flags on the flagpole it maintains at the monument. The Pride flag will be positioned below the U.S. Flag, in accordance with the U.S. Flag code, and above the park service flag. Each will measure nine metres by 1.5 metres.

The site also features a large Pride banner on a city-controlled flag pole and small rainbow flags on a fence surrounding the monument. Those have stayed up the whole time.

"We fought the Trump administration and won," said Manhattan Borough president Brad Hoylman-Sigal, a Democrat who helped organize a protest Pride flag raising at the monument after the government-authorized banner was removed.

"We as an LGBTQ community celebrate the legal climb down by the gutless Trump administration on their contemptuous attempt to erase queer people from American history at Stonewall, the birthplace of the worldwide LGBTQ human rights movement," said Hoylman-Sigal, who is the first openly gay person elected to his job.

The Gilbert Baker Foundation, which honours the Pride flag creator who died in 2017, was among the organizations that sued over its removal from the Stonewall monument.

"Stonewall is sacred ground in the fight for LGBTQ+ liberation, and this resolution helps ensure that the Rainbow Flag will continue to fly there, where it belongs," foundation president Charley Beal said.

The Pride flag had become a flashpoint for arguments over U.S. President Donald Trump's approach to the Stonewall site — the first national monument commemorating LGBTQ+ history — and various other historical properties.

After a years-long campaign by activists who wanted the flag symbolizing LGBTQ+ pride to be flown daily inside the park service-run site, the banner was formally installed in 2022 during president Joe Biden's tenure.

At the time, park service officials in New York called the display a sign of the government's commitment to "telling the complex and diverse histories of all Americans."

In February, the park service removed the flag, in what the agency explained as compliance with federal guidance on flag displays. A Jan. 21 park service memo largely restricts the agency to displaying the U.S. Department of the Interior and POW/MIA (prisoner-of-war and missing-in-action) flags, with exemptions that include providing "historical context."

The park service insisted that the monument "remains committed to preserving and interpreting the history and significance of this site" through various exhibits and programs. But LGBTQ+ activists saw the flag's removal as a targeted affront meant to diminish a site that is all about their fight for rights and visibility.

Advocates and some New York Democratic elected officials turned up soon after with another rainbow flag and hoisted it in place of the one that had been removed.

Former U.S. President Barack Obama created the Stonewall monument in 2016. The monument is in a tiny park across the street from the Stonewall Inn, the gay bar where a 1969 police raid sparked an uprising and helped catalyze the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement.

After Trump returned to office last year, he took aim at diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and protections for transgender people. In one outcome of his policies, many references to transgender people were excised from the monument's website and materials.

Trump's administration similarly has put national parks, museums and landmarks under a messaging microscope, aiming to remove or alter materials that the government says are "divisive or partisan" or "inappropriately disparage Americans."

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