The fight over flagpoles

Flagpoles are becoming the latest battlefield in the culture wars. Activists are fighting to get their banners onto public flagstaffs while keeping off those representing other groups or beliefs.

The conflict is particularly heated this month, when the Pride flag celebrating LGBTQ communities waves from numerous public buildings.

The show of support for Pride Month is prompting other groups to demand equal space on flagpoles. In Ferndale, Mich., for example, a Christian organization, noting the Pride flags on municipal buildings, asked the city to fly the Sacred Heart of Jesus banner as well.

Hamtramck, Mich., has it right. The Detroit enclave adopted what it is calling a neutrality ordinance that limits the flags on taxpayer-owned buildings to the American flag and banners representing the state of Michigan, city of Hamtramck and the community of nations, as well as the prisoner of war flag.

The city used the ordinance to reject the Pride flag, angering many LGBTQ residents.

It is a principled position that recognizes residents have widely different views on the causes being championed by the various flags, and it's not just the Pride flag at issue. Many Americans objected at the start of the Russia/Ukraine war to the raising of the Ukrainian flag on government buildings here.

We don't need another reason to fight in this country. Displays on public buildings that serve to divide the community should be avoided.

Owners of private property are free to display whatever flags they choose. Those who destroy flags on private flagpoles, as happened recently at a church in Ann Arbor, should be prosecuted. Such attacks on free speech should not be tolerated.

Public spaces, however, should serve to unite and represent the widest constituency possible.

Government flagpoles should be reserved, without exception, for the flags of the United States, as well as the local and state flags.

That policy would reflect the sentiment of the Pledge of Allegiance, which declares America, "one nation," indivisible. It would also signal that communities are not picking sides in the culture wars.

The U.S. flag should be a banner all Americans can take pride in, regardless of their political and social beliefs. It should still unite us in the promise of freedom to be whoever we choose to be in this country.

It doesn't need the distraction of other flags squabbling over who gets to fly alongside it.