Morro Bay council unanimously votes to fly LGBTQ Pride flag over City Hall

Morro Bay will fly the LGBTQ+ Pride flag over City Hall in June 2023, the City Council decided.

“The Morro Bay community is open to everybody,” City Council member Dawn Addis told The Tribune. “We have a number of community residents, visitors who came out and told us this was a very important way to show support and solidarity and to be an affirming community.”

In a unanimous decision at its meeting on Nov. 22, the City Council approved two ordinances: one that allows the city to fly commemorative flags at City Hall, and another that empowers the city to fly the Pride flag each June.

According to agenda documents, City Hall’s flagpole is not a traditional public forum, like a public park, that is “used by the public for the free exchange of ideas.” Instead, it is a nonpublic forum, and the government can place “reasonable restrictions” on speech in these areas.

The City Council had a choice: It could open the flagpole to public speech, or it could designate the flagpole for government speech that expresses “official views of the city,” agenda documents said.

The City Council voted to pass a policy that designates the City Hall flagpole for government speech. Now, in order to fly commemorative flags that represent “a specific date, historical event, cause, nation or group of people,” the City Council must vote to pass a policy to do so, the ordinance said.

Commemorative flags can only be flown for 30 days or one month at a time, and only one commemorative flag can be displayed at a time, the ordinance said.

The City Council also voted to pass a resolution to fly the LGBTQ+ flag each June to align with Pride Month.

Councilmember Jen Ford said “a full house of folks” showed up to a previous City Council meeting and explained that the Pride flag made them feel welcome in places where they expected exclusion.

“It’s not necessarily a way of eliminating certain parts of our community, but instead it’s a way of illuminating and supporting parts of our community,” Ford said.

Supporting the LGBTQ+ community is ‘urgent,’ City Council member said

Addis said the decision to fly the Pride flag is important considering the recent shooting that killed five people at an LGBTQ+ nightclub in Colorado.

“What happened in Colorado was an absolute tragedy, and the number of hate crimes perpetuated against the LGBTQIA population and community is something we absolutely have to be talking about and addressing,” Addis said. “The Morro Bay decision was one small action that our city can take to show that all people are welcome here.”

According to a 2020 report from the United States Department of Justice, 20% of hate crimes are motivated by bias against sexual orientation.

“We’ve just talked about the violence against LGBT communities, the targeting of LGBT communities, and city leaders need to be leading on this issue and showing our support,” Addis said. “It’s incredibly urgent.”

Will flying the Pride Flag lead to lawsuits?

Two speakers at public comment opposed the ordinance, they said, because they thought choosing to fly certain flags instead of others made the city vulnerable to lawsuits.

Morro Bay resident Judy Setting said flying the Pride flag sets precedent for other groups to ask the city to fly their flag. If the City Council declines to fly a flag they consider harmful, such as the Confederate flag, those groups may sue the city, she said.

“In the United States we have hundreds if not thousands of minority groups that would welcome the chance to be recognized by the opportunity to have their flag or symbol flown over city halls,” Setting said. “We are setting ourselves up for lawsuits that may result from denying a group that we deem to have a harmful agenda.”

Setting said that Morro Bay businesses and individual homes can fly the Pride flag without legal concerns, so Morro Bay should represent LGBTQ+ community that way. There’s no reason for the city to also fly the Pride flag, she said.

“Our City Hall is in the business of representing all citizens, not adopting resolutions that may offend some and represent a small minority,” Setting said.

City attorney Chris Neumeyer said the city’s policy to fly the Pride flag is consistent with past U.S. Supreme Court decisions, so he’s not concerned about lawsuits related to the policy.

“I can’t say that people won’t sue the city, but I believe that it’s consistent with the law. So I believe that the city would be on solid legal ground,” Neumeyer said.

He said the policy is “equivalent” to the City Council issuing proclamations at their meetings, which are also a form of government speech.

“There’s no First Amendment right to have your proclamation brought into City Council meetings because that’s government speech,” Neumeyer said. “That’s the city decision, so I don’t see any of those lawsuits having any traction.”