Want to fly a flag outside Newport City Hall? Why permission may soon be required
NEWPORT — City Hall has three flag poles displayed proudly outside its facade. While these flagpoles have been used to display several different non-government flags over recent years, the city itself has no policy on what kinds of flags it can display. A new resolution seeks to change that.
Newport City Council will decide on whether to adopt a new resolution this Wednesday which asks for city administration and the city solicitor to draft a new flag policy for city hall. According to the language in the resolution, it was written in response to a May 2022 Supreme Court decision that ruled that a government body that lacked a policy or ordinance on which flags it allows to fly on the flagpoles it owned cannot reject a proposal to fly a certain flag based on that flag’s content.
The case behind the Supreme Court decision involved a request to fly a Christian flag at Boston City Hall in 2017, which the city rejected. The Supreme Court had determined that since Boston did not have an official policy deciding which flags the city could fly, flying flags did not constitute a way for the government to speak, but rather a platform for citizens to communicate their own views. In rejecting the Christian flag at city hall, the Supreme Court said Boston city government violated the requester's First Amendment right.
Like Boston, the city of Newport has flown non-government flags on city hall’s flagpole, including the LGBTQ Pride Flag and the Juneteenth Flag, but also like Boston, the city does not have an official policy on which flags it grants permission to display. In asking for city administration and the solicitor to come up with a policy, the resolution seeks to establish that Newport City Hall’s flagpole is a platform for the city government to communicate messages.
The resolution also states the city of Newport’s policy position on the matter is to fly the city, state and national flags and other flags can be flown on municipal flagpoles with a vote from City Council.
This article originally appeared on Newport Daily News: Newport City Council to consider policy on flags displayed at City Hall
