But with that said, more people signed up for flags than ever before and were more excited about showing love and support to the LGBTQ community than ever.” Heber City, Utah. “A number of people found their flags torn or written on or even lit on fire, which I think speaks to a more emboldened hatred. “It does seem like there was an uptick in stolen flags and particularly vandalized flags,” Horns said in an email to NBC News. This month, for National Coming Out Day on Oct. Horns estimated that about 10 percent of last year’s flags were stolen or vandalized. The flags were not all well-received: The group received backlash on social media from people accusing it of “forcing their beliefs” on local communities, according to the group’s founder, Lucas Horns. The group staked about 1,400 flags, and raised about $20,000, which it donated to local LGBTQ centers. Last year, Project Rainbow, a small Salt Lake City-based nonprofit, rented out rainbow flags for $14 that Utahans could stake in their lawns for the duration of their city’s Pride festivities. Throughout Utah, rainbow flags are becoming common and increasingly controversial. Councilman Sam Hindi told the Bay Area Reporter that doing so would open the door for hate groups to fly banners in the city.

That same month, officials in Foster City, California, a town of about 34,000, refused a request to raise a Pride flag outside the city’s municipal building in celebration of Pride Month. This past June, debate swarmed in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, a town of about 42,000, after the town’s first Pride flag was relocated to what many residents considered a less visible location. After criticism, he reversed his decision, and the rainbow flag flew over the city last June. Last year, Mayor Wally Scott of Reading, Pennsylvania, canceled a Pride flag ceremony, calling the flag a political symbol. Home to about 16,000 people, Heber City is a microcosm of how small towns across America are adjusting to evolving attitudes around gender and sexuality. “No one ever gave me a specific example besides those that we could dismiss easily as hate speech,” said Potter, who had approved the Pride banners the past two years. Still, the inquiries sparked debate among city officials over whether an ordinance was needed to regulate them. She said city officials began receiving phone calls and emails from people who wanted to know if they could hypothetically apply to install flags with anti-abortion or anti-pornography messages, or with Ku Klux Klan or Nazi symbols, though no one actually applied to install such banners.

While many were thrilled, others saw the rainbow banners as government-sanctioned “political speech,” according to Potter. “It has pretty much eliminated the option of private citizens funding banners and requesting them to be hung on Main Street, unless they are able to get sponsorship from the city, the county or the chamber, and that sponsorship means some financial sponsorship,” she said.Ī day after they appeared along Main Street, residents filled a city council meeting to voice divided opinions over them. Heber City Mayor Kelleen Potter, the mother of two LGBTQ teens, opposed the ordinance. Due to the ongoing debate within the community over whether Pride banners are “political” speech, and since the new ordinance bans political banners, it’s unclear whether city officials will approve them next June. Any event or message promoted on the signage must be sponsored by Heber City, Wasatch County or the Heber Valley Chamber of Commerce, and events must be both nonpolitical and nonprofit. The new ordinance, passed in August, requires banner applications be reviewed by the city manager, with appeals submitted to the council for review. “It feels like a slap in the face,” said Allison Phillips Belnap, 47, a local real estate attorney who raised $3,553 through a GoFundMe campaign to purchase and install the banners on city lampposts.

Ryan stacks gay