Brownback Stops Gay Rights Group From Flying Rainbow Flag

The First Amendment ensures United States citizens the right to worship, the right to free speech and freedom of the press, but it also assures citizens the right to peaceably assemble.  During a rally on June 24 at the state capitol, the Kansas Equality Coalition was denied this right by the Governor Sam Brownback administration when they were prohibited from carrying flagpoles bearing the national, state, and the rainbow flags under the pretense that the flags doubled as weapons.

The Kansas Equality Coalition is a Kansas-wide organization with chapters in most major cities, including Wichita, Lawrence, Manhattan, and Dodge City.  Officially established in the fall of 2005, the KEC exists to confront homophobia and end discrimination against the GLBT community.  They are one of the largest groups in Kansas with over 600 members actively engaged in lobbying, rallying, and showing their support for pro-GLBT organizations and businesses—they are neither militant nor dangerous.

The Coalition arrived in Topeka on June 24 and gathered on public property, armed with their so-called weapons.  Police stopped them from carrying the flagpoles with the national, state, and rainbow flags, and also prevented them from handing out smaller rainbow flags to the crowd.   The police claimed that the poles and the tiny wooden sticks could potentially be used as weapons and were therefore prohibited.

The prohibition of flags at the Capitol, however, is not universal.  Groups that support pet causes of the Brownback administration, that is, groups that are anti-abortion, anti-gay, and so-called “pro-family” are allowed to carry flags similar or identical to the flags the Kansas Equality Coalition wished to bear without repercussion.

The KEC were taken aback by the confrontation.  Later, in a letter to their members posted on Facebook, they stated, “We will not be harassed.  We will not be intimidated.  We will not meekly hang our heads, put away our Rainbow and American flags, and accept second-class status from homophobic politicians.  We do not agree that the radical-right owns the privilege of patriotism, and we shall not surrender to their demands that we remove ourselves from American life by cowering in our closets.”

Brownback openly condemns homosexuality and consistently votes against gay rights, citing his relatively recent conversion to Catholicism as motivation.  Homosexuality goes against Catholic doctrine, and the more conservative members of the Church, including Brownback, believe that it is inherently sinful.  Brownback has been associated with Opus Dei, a more conservative branch of the Church through the priest who converted him, Reverend John McCloskey.  With his connections to such anti-gay organizations like the American Family Association, Brownback has built himself up as a major opponent of gay rights at the state and national level.

The Kansas Equality Coalition is rallying again on August 6 at noon at the State Capitol to deliver a letter to Governor Brownback about egalitarianism and patriotism.