Another Alberta town is eyeing up banning pride flags and crosswalks | Canada
Another Alberta town is eyeing up banning pride flags and crosswalks | Canada
there should be no decorations on municipal crosswalks
You could make an argument that crosswalks should be painted a standard colour with expected markings, since it's a safety/accessibility issue that that point.
or displaying of flags supporting political, social, or religious movements or commercial entities
The people who put the package together lumped everything into the same category.
Sure, we should NOT have religious flags on our government buildings. By that token, we should remove any and all religion from those buildings and any texts, too. No mention of God, especially.
Commercial entities? Yeah, they don't belong on government flag poles.
Political? I'd need an example. I would not want to see the flag of various parties on a government building. That's just inappropriate.
But social movements? They stay. I WANT my local, provincial, and federal governments to show support for marginalized groups. That includes our LGBTQ, indigenous, disabled, visible minorities, etc.
I'm proud to see our local fire and police vehicles with rainbow flag stickers on them.
Separate the hate from the reasonable, and this petition might not seem so ass backwards.
40Separate the hate from the reasonable, and this petition might not seem so ass backwards.
They're adding a few reasonable sounding points to their argument to make the whole thing sound like a rational proposal.
18only national, provincial, and municipal flags should be flown at municipal facilities or flagpoles
I know this is pretty off-topic, but I found this part funny when one of my municipal Councillors proposed a similar bylaw (which thankfully failed). In Canada, municipal governments are creatures of the province, and the provinces have entered into confederation. By their logic, we shouldn't be flying Canadian flags as the country has no direct relation to the municipality.
8You are falling exactly into their snare.
It's a "mostly reasonable" petition that will get "mostly reasonable" people to support it. In fact, it is a direct, deliberate, methodical attack on the LGBTQ2+ community, and aimed at making them feel unsafe.
If we were going to call this reasonable and ban all religious iconography from the government, then we shouldn't be allowed to sing God Save the King or O Canada on government property. ("God keep our land/Glorious and Free" since 1980).
This is absolutely hate-based, make no mistake.
5Make no mistake. I understand exactly the game they are playing.
I would NOT sign a petition like this, even if I agree with most of it.
Because I completely understand that the true motive is to remove flags that support marginalised groups in our country.
But you are correct that they idea of including reasonable points, is exactly to attract reasonable people or to legitimise the rest of it.
4
Very well said. I'm saving this one because I'll never do better with my own brain.
2commercial entities
Here in India, our police barracades have the names of banks on them. Its advertising revenue, but to me it looks like "the police are brought to you by..."
But, really, economic capture means its the same thing
5But social movements? They stay. I WANT my local, provincial, and federal governments to show support for marginalized groups. That includes our LGBTQ, indigenous, disabled, visible minorities, etc.
This is how you end up with thin blue line flags and other dog whistle neo Nazi flags hanging at the court house.
Because, many will argue, the white male is now a minority thats being oppressed...
1Because, many will argue, the white male is now a minority thats being oppressed...
At 49.8% or some similarly dumb number, the facts are there. And I've seen advertisements for jobs etc that say my genetic mix isn't welcome, like being French is a choice or being left-handed. The components of reverse sexism are there.
I hope that if I learn to cope with minor disadvantage, that we can keep the equality movement as an equality movement and not some revenge play where I get penalized too often for something I wasn't a part of.
There. I know my own opinion smells like virtue signalling while it also doesn't placate people who've been hurt and want payba-uh, justice. Ironically I'll be downvoted to hell for promoting equality, I expect.
2
over 10% of an Alberta town's population signed a petition
Democracy in action, all voices carry equal weight, majority rules, etc. /s
36Alberta being weak again
24The town of Barrhead has a population of 4320 people. Only
10%(correction, 16%) of the town petitioned for this as-yet-unpassed bylaw. Those individuals don't even represent the town of Barrhead, much less the entire province.I don't mean this personally - I'm surprised that someone who is as vocal about proportional representation as you are would be insensitive to the demographic facts of this matter.
14First off, 851 people (20%) signed the petition.
"Those individuals" who raised this are undoubtedly tied back to Take Back Alberta - or at least, the organizers are.
They will do the same thing that Westlock did: Present this as a neutral "no special interests" policy, and then advertise the shit out of their rational opinion, attacking the woke extremists for forcing their issue on what should be neutral territory.
Then they'll get about a 51% vote - not representative of the entire town, but enough to ban pride symbolism in the town.
Then they'll move onto the next town - maybe Rocky Mountain House or Didsbury or Sexsmith or Brooks. Actually, scratch that - they won't touch a town in Smith's riding for now.
But over time, they'll get the same bylaw passed in another town and another and another, until they can claim most of the rural electoral districts. Then - maybe after getting a few larger towns or even cities (Lethbridge), they'll petition the government. "Clearly the majority of Albertans support this neutrality, so let's make it a provincial law."
And David Parker will sit back, chuckling in his white robe and hat, as he destroys the lives of LGBTQ2+ people, and finishes his second front - banning abortion in the province.
8
That's hardly fair. An extremely determined and well-organized psychopath - who happens to manipulate the premier's office - has been working on this for a decade. Albertans are pretty fucking wishy-washy and wayyyyyy too right-wing, but the hardcore extremist hatred is being carefully stoked by Nazis. Nazis named Take Back Alberta.
7
So how about we petition to require rainbows everywhere? Apparently you only need 10% of votes
20In a public information package, the town stated that it received a petition on July 26 that called for crosswalks to only be painted in the standard white striped pattern between two parallel lines; that there should be no decorations on municipal crosswalks or displaying of flags supporting political, social, or religious movements or commercial entities; only national, provincial, and municipal flags should be flown at municipal facilities or flagpoles; and that there would be no grandfathering of existing crosswalks or flags that contravene the bylaw.
6You could almost make this an argument that homes and businesses would not be able to have flags because they go above the side walk. Or have sale signs in front of coffee shops because it's a "decoration". Seems a little too vague. Also a pride flag isn't political, social, religious, or commercial. It's like having brown hair. Homosexuality is natural and observed in over 5000 species.
The part I would agree with is the crosswalk part, purely from a safety perspective.
4Pride flags are absolutely political in today's landscape.
1Yeah, I very much support rainbows and pride stuff in other places, but I have never felt great about rainbow crosswalks. I'm an autistic driver, I do my best to limit distraction and already have to spend so much of my daily "supply" of willpower staying focused on my short drive. Heck, a freshly painted white crosswalk is distracting enough, lol.
But since it's something for the public, if it hasn't actually increased traffic incidents, then I am also fine with it. My personal experience with it isn't universal, after all.
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