A judge has ruled that the Detroit-area city of Hamtramck didn’t violate the law when it banned the LGBT flag from being flown in public spaces.
The Monday ruling comes two years after the predominantly Muslim Hamtramck City Council voted to only permit the American flag, the Michigan flag, and flags that “represent the international character” of the community to be displayed on publicly owned property.
A Muslim-majority council in Hamtramck, Michigan has banned the flying of the LGBT Pride Flag on city property. What are your thoughts? pic.twitter.com/pULjmcXe9r
— Chief Trumpster (@ChiefTrumpster) July 29, 2023
The council’s ruling prompted a federal lawsuit from two former city officials, Russ Gordon and Cathy Stackpoole.
In the suit, the two complained that they lost their jobs with the Hamtramck Human Relations Commission after they tried to fly an LGBT flag on a city flagpole.
“This Council believes in fairness, neutrality towards our residents, and the rule of law, amongst other things, for this community,” Hamtramck City Council member Khalil Refai said at the time of the flag incident.
“We passed a resolution recently to do just that, and two of our sworn commissioners outright defied it, and did what they wanted,” he added.
The two disgruntled former employees nevertheless claimed in their suit “that the council’s new resolution, voted on in June 2023, was unconstitutional and violated the commissioners’ freedom of speech,” according to CBS News.
The suit also alleged that Gordon and Stackpoole had done nothing wrong by displaying the LGBT/Pride flag.
“In so doing, Gordon was not violating the law,” the lawsuit reads, according to Michigan Advance. “An unconstitutional Resolution is itself a violation of law, and a citizen who violates an unconstitutional, and therefore unlawful, Resolution cannot be violating the law. Rather, the Councilmen who voted in favor of the unconstitutional Resolution violated the law by violating the Constitution.”
During a Hamtramck, Mich. city council meeting to vote on whether the #Pride flag would be banned from all city property, two women who opposed the resolution kissed each other in a stunt, offending the Muslims. pic.twitter.com/wOZu71nL4w
— Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) June 14, 2023
On Monday, Judge David Lawson rejected the suit and dismissed it with prejudice.
“Hamtramck’s refusal to display the Gay Pride flag did not violate the Constitution,” he ruled, explaining that because the city’s policy bans ALL private flags, it’s perfectly justified.
Tension between Hamtramck’s Muslim majority and leftist progressive minority first started simmering in the summer of 2021.
At the time, then-Mayor Karen Majewski reportedly broke a 3-3 City Council tie to fly a Pride flag outside City Hall.
The move inspired massive backlash from local Muslims.
“[Current Mayor Amer] Ghalib, a [former] health care worker and Muslim immigrant from Yemen, made the flag a campaign issue and handily defeated Majewski, a four-term mayor, in November 2021,” according to the Michigan Advance.
“Since then, local Muslims have joined forces with conservative Republicans, pledging to create an alliance to oppose LGBTQ+ rights. The coalition is propelled by crackpot ideas that public schools are ‘grooming’ and indoctrinating impressionable children,” the Advance’s blatantly biased reporting continues.
Dismissing the endorsement as a slight is a lot easier than wrestling with the issues that led Ghalib to make it. In 2021, previous mayor Karen Majewski, cast a tie-breaking vote to fly a Pride flag outside city hall. Ghalib opposed it, and ended up with 68% of the vote. 4/7 pic.twitter.com/2CNQAD9o6d
— Michigan Enjoyer (@mich_enjoyer) October 2, 2024
Local liberals felt betrayed after Ghalib’s victory and then the subsequent flag ban.
“There’s a sense of betrayal,” Majewski told The Guardian at the time. “We supported you when you were threatened, and now our rights are threatened, and you’re the one doing the threatening.”
She added that in 2005, the community’s then-predominantly white city council instituted an ordinance allowing Muslims to broadcast a call to prayer from their mosques five times daily. The council did so despite the objection of the city’s white residents.
Local progressives foolishly thought that catering to Muslims would endear them to said Muslims, but as usual, they were completely wrong, and instead, said Muslims ended up voting with Republicans in 2024:
The mayor of Hamtramck, Michigan—the country’s only Muslim-majority city, which banned Trans Progress Pride flags from being flown on government buildings— endorsed Trump on behalf of the people. Trump brings everyone together. pic.twitter.com/vV6qoNoSpp
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) October 19, 2024
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
V. Saxena is a staff writer with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University. Saxena also contributes to BizPac Review.
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