City's rainbow sticker causes controversy in Michigan

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http://www.freep.com/news/mich/bumper4_20010104.htm

http://www.freep.com/news/mich/bumper4_20010104.htm

City's rainbow sticker causes controversy

Some say it promotes homosexual behavior

January 4, 2001

BY AMBER ARELLANO

FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

Traverse City leaders thought they had done something simple and positive: After a spate of hate crimes, they created a bumper sticker designed to send a message of acceptance and tolerance.

Then special interests got involved. Lawyers were consulted. Suddenly the little sticker featuring a rainbow of colors and the words "We Are Traverse City" was caught in a very sticky situation.

Christian conservatives from around the country checked in, saying the rainbow -- a gay-pride symbol -- promotes immorality. Gay and civil rights activists spoke up for their side. City officials were barraged with phone calls and e-mails.

Then Tuesday, at a raucous public meeting, the city's attorney announced that the stickers -- designed to be placed on city vehicles and handed out to the public -- could not be displayed on official cars after all. They'd establish a precedent, and the city would have to allow other bumper stickers to be posted as well.

On Wednesday, city leaders ordered the stickers removed and pondered how their good intentions had gone so wrong.

"I'm saddened that what began as an honest and open effort ...turned into friction," City Manager Richard I. Lewis said. "We do want to be a diverse community -- anti-violence, anti-hate."

The matter isn't over. Local civil rights activists want to buy the bumper stickers and distribute them to the public. If the city refuses, activists are considering making their own copies of the sticker, said Traverse City resident M'Lynn Hartwell.

And people are still arguing over what the rainbow really symbolizes and whether city leaders knew it could be construed as promoting gay pride.

For years, the rainbow has been a common emblem of gay liberation, displayed prominently at parades and in publications. But there's also Jesse Jackson's Rainbow-Push coalition, for example, which advocates empowerment for all minorities, particularly people of color.

"I'm a child of the '60s," said Margaret Dodd, a Traverse City commissioner who help create the sticker. "There were damn rainbows everywhere. It wasn't a gay thing. It was love, peace, happiness, inclusive, an Age of Aquarius thing."

Dodd and other city leaders came up with the sticker idea in November while brainstorming ways to promote tolerance among the city's 15,000 mostly white residents. Over the last few years, hate crimes have increased. A cross was burned on a black family's lawn; Jewish families' mailboxes were torn down. Then last fall, three skinheads chased a gay man, intending to beat him, police said.

A citizens group called Hate Free T.C. sprang up to show that minorities and gays are welcome in the community. But Dodd and others felt more should be done.

Dodd said she and the city's Human Rights Commission came up with a rainbow design for a bumper sticker similar to one used by Hate Free T.C. She said they combined the rainbow with a design borrowed from the nearby Interlochen Arts Academy that showed interlocking puzzle pieces representing people.

"Everybody thought it was lovely," said Dodd.

The city spent $1,800 to produce 10,000 stickers to put on 100 official vehicles and distribute to residents. For a couple of weeks after the bumper sticker's unveiling Dec. 19, city leaders thought they had done a great thing.

Then in Midland, the American Family Association of Michigan decided the sticker was offensive and promoted homosexuality. President Gary Glenn, who said his group promotes "traditional Judeo-Christian family values," told Christian radio stations across the country about it.

"That's the great thing about America," Glenn said Wednesday. "It allows for a diversity of public opinion to be stated ...without discrimination based on location."

Meanwhile, the Triangle Foundation, a gay advocacy group based in Detroit, encouraged people to support the sticker, believed to be one of the first such logos from a U.S. city to include a rainbow.

"Certainly, to different people, the rainbow means different things," said Heather MacAllister, a Triangle organizer. "But to gay and lesbian people and to me, if I saw that sticker going through Traverse City, I would say, 'This is great. I'm safe here. Gay people are cherished and valued here.' "

In the last week, more than 200 people have called and e-mailed the city on both sides. Lewis, the city manager, said support was split among residents, too.

Mayor Larry Hardy did not respond to an interview request Wednesday, but he told reporters earlier this week that he felt duped into supporting the sticker, having had no idea the rainbow image was associated with gay rights.

"I personally think I was kind of conned," Hardy was quoted as saying in the Traverse City Record-Eagle. "I was stupid not to know what the symbol stood for."

City Commissioner Linda Smyka, who loved the idea, said she now can't support it because of concerns about its legality. She said she hopes the city can find another way to promote diversity.

Dave Leach, a Traverse City police officer, said he would support a rainbow-free sticker promoting diversity. But the officer, who said he believes homosexual behavior is a perversion and sin, said he didn't feel comfortable driving a squad car with a rainbow sticker on it.

"They should put the message on an American flag or something," he said.

-- Tidbit (of@the.day), January 05, 2001

Answers

Christian conservatives, whose biblical book of Genesis includes a story about a global flood at the end of which their God displayed a rainbow, consider the rainbow a gay-pride symbol which promotes immorality?

Umm ... will someone please ask them what their God said about the rainbow shown to Noah?

-- No Spam Please (nos_pam_please@hotmail.com), January 05, 2001.


There's a picture of the Traverse City rainbow sticker at the link.

-- See (it@for.yourself), January 06, 2001.

No Spam:

You have a bunch of, mostly men, locked-up in a boat for a long time with animals. God may have had many meanings for the rainbow; if you buy the story which isn't original with the Bible.Of course you know that.

-- Observer (Observer@history.rem), January 06, 2001.


See -- thanks for the link. I wouldn't call that a gay pride sticker; I'd call it a damned bad graphic!

-- E.H.Porter (just.wondering@about.it), January 07, 2001.

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