Bozeman to Consider Making the Pride Flag an Official City Flag
Bozeman City Commission will have this discussion on July 15.
The Bozeman City Commission will discuss making the pride flag an official city flag at its next city commission meeting.
Bozeman Mayor Terry Cunningham announced on Tuesday that the city will deliberate on July 15 how it “will comply” with Montana’s new law banning municipalities from flying flags that express a political viewpoint towards a “political party, race, sexual orientation, gender, or political ideology.”
According to The Galatin Valley Sentinel, the Bozeman City Commission was slated to discuss adopting the pride flag as an official city flag at this week’s meeting. However, the agenda item was removed earlier this month.
In June, two cities in Montana flew the pride flag in opposition to House Bill (HB) 819. Missoula passed a resolution that adopted this flag as its official city flag. After Missoula did this, Butte voted to fly the pride flag at its courthouse in June.
Silver Bow County Attorney Matt Enrooth wrote a letter saying Montana counties seeking to fly the pride flag can reference Missoula’s designation of the flag.
“As with flying the Montana state flag or U.S. flag, which are official symbols adopted by other levels of government, counties may recognize and display Missoula's official flag without taking independent legislative action,” he stated.
After Cunningham made this announcement, Commissioner Emma Bode expressed her disappointment that Bozeman did not discuss making the pride flag an official city flag at this week’s city commission meeting. However, she did say she was “excited” to talk about this topic at next week’s meeting.
Bode stated there is a “disagreement” among the Bozeman community and the city commission on how to deal with HB 819. She added that the lack of dialogue on this topic has led to “consternation” building in Bozeman.
The commission member said the Montana State Legislature had dropped this “burning coal” in the city council’s lap and that it can’t make this go away by ignoring it.
Bode noted last month that Bozeman took down its pride progress flag on May 23. This occurred 10 days after Gov. Greg Gianforte signed HB 819 into law.
During the public comment section of Bozeman’s city commission meeting, community members had a mixed reaction to adopting the pride flag as Bozeman’s official flag. Many people supported it, while others opposed it.
One proponent, Ren Sterns, a Bozeman resident, told the city commission that Bozeman already flew the pride flag, but the state government “stepped in and said, ‘You can’t do that.’” She added that this “supression of queer voices” show why the pride flag exists.
Sterns stated America and Montana are “actively” passing laws “against the very existence of queer people.” She said as long as this keeps happening, the American flag is not “inclusive of all people.”
“A pride flag flown on city hall tells queer people that they are safe here and tells hateful individuals that violent actions against minorities will not be tolerated,” she explained.
On the other side, an opponent, Conor Culver, a Bozeman resident, said the city should not make the pride flag the official city flag because “it is a purely political symbol.” He said he didn’t think this was an “appropriate symbol” to fly over government buildings.
Culver said this flag should be reserved for individuals to fly. He added that the only flags that Bozeman should be flying are the American flag, city flag and state flag because they are “apolitical.”
“No one wants people’s sexuality or political ideology shoved in their face, especially not by what are supposed to be neutral civic institutions like schools and city governments,” he explained. “Those who support adopting the pride flag are choosing to provoke division and erode public trust.”
State Rep. Braxton Mitchell (R-Columbia Falls), who sponsored HB 819, previously told The Montana Chronicles that in the next session, he would amend state law to prevent state municipalities from adopting a flag that expresses a political or ideological viewpoint as their official flag.
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Zachery Schmidt is the founder of The Montana Chronicles. If you have any tips, please send them to montanachronicles@proton.me.