A Pride flag ban sparks accusations of betrayal in tiny Michigan city<\/strong><\/a>
HAMTRAMCK, Mich. \u2014 This city of 28,000 was once so Polish it was dubbed \u201cLittle Warsaw.\u201d But in recent decades, an influx of immigrants gave Hamtramck new character. Bengali and Arabic joined English on signs at City Hall. Yemeni and Bangladeshi mosques, restaurants and shops proliferated.<\/p>\nAnd last year, a Muslim who emigrated from Yemen as a teenager became mayor \u2014 the city\u2019s first leader in nearly a century with no Polish roots \u2014 alongside what is believed to be the nation\u2019s only all-Muslim city council.<\/p>\n
Many residents in this tiny enclave just north of downtown Detroit saw these changes as a sign of the Hamtramck\u2019s progressiveness. The Muslim community that had previously experienced discrimination, including voter intimidation and resistance to mosques\u2019 public call to prayer, had finally taken its seats at the table.<\/p>\n
Yet the ethnic, cultural and religious diversity that made Hamtramck something of a model is being put severely to the test. In June, after divisive debate, the six-member council blocked the display of Pride flags on city property<\/strong> \u2014 action that has angered allies and members of the LGBTQ+ community, who feel that the support they provided the immigrant groups has been reciprocated with betrayal.<\/p>\n\u201cWe welcomed you,\u201d former council member Catrina Stackpoole, a retired social worker who identifies as gay, recalls telling the council this summer. \u201cWe created nonprofits to help feed, clothe, find housing. We did everything we could to make your transition here easier, and this is how you repay us, by stabbing us in the back?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
All together now: WAAAAAAHHH!!! <\/i>Nota bene<\/em> this next part, y\u2019all, it\u2019s important.<\/p>\n\nThe council\u2019s unanimous vote in the middle of Pride Month seemed intentional to Stackpoole and others, though the resolution banned not only the rainbow flag but all flags except for the U.S., state, city and POW\/MIA banners<\/strong>. Mayor Amer Ghalib, 43, defends the action as one of neutrality, saying no group should be able to promote a political agenda on city property.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\nEmphasis mine, in both excerpted sections, and entirely dispositive. So to translate from the WaPo shitlib-ese hysterics, then: This \u201cban\u201d affects\u00a0city-government buildings only<\/strong>, which is no more than appropriate; individuals remain perfectly free to fly any flag they like from their homes, places of business, and personal conveyances without falling afoul of this ban-that-isn\u2019t-really-a-ban-at-all.<\/p>\nAhh, but does it get even better, you ask? Why yes. Yes, it does.<\/p>\n
\nAnyone who thought the controversy might soon go away was mistaken. The tension surfaced again in early September when the mayor and council balked at marching next to the Hamtramck Queer Alliance in the Labor Day parade.<\/p>\n
\u201cBasically, they wanted to destroy our image in front of our supporters by making us look like we were leading the queer group with all those flags flying behind us,\u201d Ghalib said in a statement afterward. He\u2019d managed to arrange a ride in a white SUV at the front of the parade, several spots removed from his concern.<\/p>\n
The Labor Day Festival committee also issued a statement last week, saying the event was organized to celebrate \u201cthe diversity that makes Hamtramck unique. We are saddened to hear that Mayor Ghalib has expressed a complaint about being in the parade in proximity to a rainbow flag or a display of LGBTQ+ pride.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for Hansknecht, who walked in the parade holding the alliance\u2019s bright yellow banner \u2014 \u201ctwo square miles, for all of us,\u201d it proclaimed \u2014 the incident only reinforced what he\u2019d believed from the start.<\/p>\n
The flag ban, he said, \u201chas always been about being anti-queer rather than the neutrality they claimed.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Aw, cry me a river, cupcake. I note that you DID carry your precious banner along the entire parade route without incident of any kind. I think it safe to assume that this hyper-sensitive bint was screaming the most offensive and confrontational epithets (s)he could come up with every last step of the way, too, at every innocuous spectator that looked the least<\/em> bit like one of those goddamned cis-het Normie oppressors to shim\/zhir.<\/p>\nGhalib, with whom I enjoyed a very cordial email exchange on this topic back in June, was perfectly correct in his clear-eyed assertion that the freaks \u2019n\u2019 geeks’ sole interest in demanding he march alongside the HQA was to humiliate him\u2014to claim a victory for themselves and then rub his face all in it. Open-mindedness and tolerance is no longer enough for these miserable wretches, oh no; you will be forced to march in their parades, bake intentionally-offensive cakes for them, give your children over to them, and enthusiastically applaud them on demand. It\u2019s like this:<\/p>\n
![\"Insanity\"](\"https:\/\/coldfury.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Insanity.png\" "\\"Insanity.png\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nCall it The Way Of The Leftist, maybe. I must say, though, that I am thoroughly enjoying the sudden implosion of the post-9\/11 alliance-of-convenience betwixt American Progtards and mainstream Moslems, whose primordial \u201creligion\u201d puts them squarely at odds with every tenet of the shitlib catechism<\/em>. I\u2019ve long insisted such a schism was inevitable, and I was correct all along about that, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"And I love it. A Pride flag ban sparks accusations of betrayal in tiny Michigan cityHAMTRAMCK, Mich. \u2014 This city of 28,000 was once so Polish it was dubbed \u201cLittle Warsaw.\u201d But in recent decades, an influx of immigrants gave Hamtramck new character. Bengali and…<\/p>\n
Would you like to know more? Hamtramck Moslems are at it again<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,18,20,28,32,194,36,50,62,77,79,84,99,114,125],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alt-american","category-bleargh","category-brilliant","category-gay-porn-cock","category-cry-me-a-river","category-sick-fucks","category-damn-thats-funny","category-youwillbemadetocare","category-hubris-and-nemesis","category-meltdown-what-meltdown","category-muahahahaha","category-passthepopcorn","category-straight-from-the-bin","category-counter-revolutionary-ideas","category-or-losing","wpcat-5-id","wpcat-18-id","wpcat-20-id","wpcat-28-id","wpcat-32-id","wpcat-194-id","wpcat-36-id","wpcat-50-id","wpcat-62-id","wpcat-77-id","wpcat-79-id","wpcat-84-id","wpcat-99-id","wpcat-114-id","wpcat-125-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coldfury.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coldfury.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coldfury.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coldfury.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coldfury.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14249"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/coldfury.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14252,"href":"https:\/\/coldfury.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14249\/revisions\/14252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coldfury.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coldfury.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coldfury.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}