A request to display a “sanctity of human life” flag at the Oceanside Civic Center has prompted a proposal to create a policy for the display of all flags on city properties.
Oceanside City Council members Rick Robinson and Peter Weiss placed the issue on the agenda for discussion at Wednesday’s meeting after receiving an email request to fly the “Sanctity of Human Life” flag outside City Hall during the week of Jan. 15-19.
The phrase “sanctity of life” is often used by abortion opponents in what is widely seen as a wedge issue between Democrats and Republicans or liberals and conservatives.
“We are at a point where we need to have some sort of discussion,” Weiss said last week.
Several city councils, school boards and other agencies have created or discussed flag policies in recent years. Many of those discussions hinged on whether to fly the rainbow Pride flag representing LGBTQ rights, another issue on which many people have strong opinions.
Weiss said that for simplicity, only three flags — city, state and nation — should be displayed at the Oceanside Civic Center.
“It’s easier just to fly the key flags,” he said. “That’s what unifies us … we should celebrate what unites us, not what divides us.”
Oceanside, a military town since Camp Pendleton was created as the Marine Corps’ West Coast training base in 1942, also displays the POW/MIA flag below the U.S. flag on the three poles with the banners at its civic center. No other flags, such as Pride flag, have been hoisted there in recent memory, a city official said.
Max Disposti, executive director of the LGBTQ Resource Center in Oceanside, said the request by Weiss and Robinson is disheartening and called it “an attack on LGBTQI+ people and our representation in Oceanside that will drag our community into a public debate that will make us even more vulnerable and less safe.”
Vista, Carlsbad, Encinitas, San Diego and Chula Vista fly the rainbow flag in June to recognize Pride Month, Disposti said in an email he sent to the Oceanside City Council.
“In other cities, hate and polarization prevailed and the introduction of a flag policy, along with the banning of books and drag shows, has become a bastion for conservative views and anti-LGBTQI+ sentiments,” he said.
“In each of these occasions the proposal of a flag policy was presented not as an anti-LGBTQI+ policy, but as one that will prevent groups or individuals from requesting to fly the Nazi flag, the Vatican City flag, the pro-life flag, and so on,” Disposti said.
The Pride flag represents a community that “has strived for equality and visibility while trying to overcome a century of hateful, discriminatory practices and violence that continue today,” Dispoto said.
“The rainbow flag does not represent a political choice, an idea, or a side to be with or against,” he said.
The request to fly the Sanctity of Human Life flag came from Mary Davis, whose only identification was an email address. No one at the email address responded to questions about where she lives and why she made the request.
La Mesa City Councilmember Laura Lothian asked her colleagues to consider a flag policy in May this year, raising points similar to those of Weiss in Oceanside.
More than 40 speakers defended flying the rainbow Pride flag in La Mesa, where it has been displayed for Pride Month since 2020, and Lothian dropped her proposal without a vote.
The Carlsbad City Council voted 3-2 in June, with Mayor Keith Blackburn and Councilmember Melanie Burkholder opposed, to display the rainbow flag during Pride Month.
The decision came a week after a meeting where the Carlsbad council failed to approve a policy that would have set guidelines for displaying any commemorative flag, including the rainbow LGBTQ banner.
Carlsbad’s council members voted the same the second time as the week before. The difference was that the proposed policy change needed four votes to pass, a requirement the City Council approved in 1970, and only three votes were necessary for a decision to fly the flag.
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