Critics call Morro Bay Pride Month declaration hollow after flag policy change
The Morro Bay City Council declared June as LGBTQ+ Pride Month on Tuesday, but some citizens said the expression of support felt empty because only two weeks ago, the City Council rescinded a policy that allowed the city to fly the Pride flag.
“It is, on the surface, a kind, a familiar gesture,” Gala Pride and Diversity Center program manager Linnea Valdivia said of the proclamation. “It tells people — LGBTQ people in Morro Bay — that we are seen, that our lives matter and that our stories are part of this community. But gestures without substance and without follow through can quickly become hollow.”
On May 13, the City Council voted unanimously to eliminate the flying of commemorative flags by repealing the city’s previous flagpole policy. The new policy bans the flying of the Pride flag, POW/MIA flag and others.
It goes into effect July 1 — immediately after the conclusion of Pride Month.
“While I do thank you for bringing this proclamation to be voted on, I need to be honest. It hurts to accept. It hurts to stand up here and smile for a gesture that no longer has policy behind it,” Valdivia said.
City council member Jeff Eckles said the process to repeal the policy started months ago, and he did not plan for the vote to occur so close to Pride month.
He also said the policy isn’t meant to target Pride flags — it’s meant to prevent the city from flying any commemorative flags, which Eckles called a “gross overreach of local government.”
“Our flagpole is a symbol of unity, not a platform for expressing selective viewpoints,” Eckles said in a statement. “When we choose to fly one group’s flag over another’s, we are inevitably excluding some members of our community.”
Valdivia, however, disagreed.
“Representation is not exclusion,” they said. “Recognizing the value of one community does not diminish anyone else’s.”
Valdivia pointed out that the City Council declared June 6 “Hunger Awareness Day” without hesitation.
“Does any reasonable person whose life hasn’t been touched by hunger feel excluded by that? Of course not. We recognize the need and we respond with empathy. That’s what good communities do,” they said.
Valdivia urged the City Council to reconsider its commemorative flag policy and take concrete action to support the LGBTQ+ community.
“I believe Morro Bay wants to be a good community,” they said. “But if you’re going to say that Pride Month matters, and if you’re going to invite us here to take pictures, make statements, then it has to mean something. It has to come with real support, with policies — not just proclamations.”
Soon-to-be Morro Bay resident Dany Capodieci said the Pride flag makes people feel welcome.
Back in 2009, she saw a Pride flag in the window of a store for the first time.
“I felt like I was supported,” she said. “That represented acceptance to me.”
Capodieci visited Morro Bay often as a child, and now, she and her partner plan to move to the beach town. She asked the City Council to make meaningful change that supports the LGBTQ+ community.
“To see this happen — it just it broke my heart,” she said. “It broke my heart as I’m looking here to move.”
Proclamation excluded the word ‘transgender’
The proclamation stated support for the “LGBTQ+” community, in which the T stands for “transgender.” However, the statement excluded the word “transgender” when it later spelled out “lesbian,” “gay,” “bisexual” and “queer.”
Jen Fields, who works in Morro Bay, urged the city to add “transgender” to the proclamation.
“Pride Month would not exist without the efforts of Black and brown transgender activists at Stonewall in 1969,” Fields said. “Any proclamation of Pride Month must include the transgender community.”
Mayor Carla Wixom said the city did not intend to excluded the word “transgender” from the proclamation.
City clerk Dana Swanson said the city would correct the error and add “transgender” to the statement before the proclamation is presented on June 1, when the city raises the Pride flag at City Hall one last time.
