linky 1
linky 2Truro mayor: It’s not OK to be gay
Town refuses to fly rainbow pride flag
By MICHAEL LIGHTSTONE Staff Reporter | 4:41 AM
Truro town hall won’t be flying a gay-rights flag when the community’s inaugural gay-pride celebration begins Monday.
Mayor Bill Mills said Friday that town council decided recently the town would not hoist a rainbow-coloured banner on municipal property, turning down a formal request from the local gay-pride group to do so.
He said the politicians held an informal vote — it wasn’t done during an official council session — and decided 6-1 against raising the symbolic flag.
"On this given week, in Truro, Nova Scotia, council saw fit to say: ‘No, we don’t think we’ll do this,’ " the mayor said.
Mr. Mills said that as a practising Christian, he personally doesn’t condone homosexuality or support same-sex marriage. He acknowledged gay rights have been "sort of a lightning-rod issue" for him during his political career. Mr. Mills has been mayor for 10 years and a member of Truro council for 20.
"I do happen to believe what’s in the Scriptures, and on that basis it puts me in kind of a hard spot to support same-sex marriage or gay pride," he told The Chronicle Herald. "It comes down to what you believe."
Mr. Mills said he knew the time would come when a gay-rights event would be floated by council and he would have to offer his personal views against a request for support from the local homosexual and lesbian community.
"I’ve been expecting this for 10 years," he said of the issue finally surfacing on his watch.
Residents commenting on a televised newscast blasted the mayor, saying his views smack of intolerance. One said it harks back to the pre-civil rights days of the American South in the 1950s.
But another, Frances Morrison, told CBC-TV she felt that Mr. Mills and council did the right thing.
"He’s expressed the point of view of a large silent minority," she said.
Al McNutt, a well-known gay-rights activist in Truro, said town hall’s decision not to let the flag fly is disappointing, to say the least.
"We’ve come so far in the last few years," said the gay father of two, who used to teach at the Nova Scotia Agricultural College in Bible Hill. He told the CBC that it’s a blow to the gay community for something like the flag denial to happen now.
The Town of Truro’s position is in contrast with that of other Canadian cities and towns, including Halifax. In metro, a Pride Week flag is raised outside city hall, the mayor signs a proclamation, councillors ride on a Halifax Regional Municipality float and city police officers and firefighters march in the annual gay-pride parade.
Mayor Peter Kelly took part in the parade in Halifax last month for the first time since he was elected in 2000.
Mr. Mills said the Town of Truro employs gay workers and he’s hoping councillors’ refusal to fly the rainbow flag won’t jeopardize the "good working relationship" he’s had with them. "They have the same rights and provisions (under human rights legislation) that everybody else has."
Asked whether he’s worried Truro’s reputation might be damaged because people could perceive it to be an unwelcoming place, Mr. Mills said he certainly is.
"That’s always the fear," Mr. Mills said of the potential negative impact. But he said he reckons a majority of local residents support council’s decision.
"When you put the flag up, then what you’re doing in one sense is you’re endorsing gay pride," Mr. Mills said. "Is that the position the Town of Truro should be in?"
A Truro newspaper Friday pub-lished 25 comments relating to an article it ran about the flag flap. Five comments were in support of town council, eight were neutral (or unclear) and 12 opposed council’s decision.
The mayor said the town won’t raise a flag simply because some group asks it to.
"There has to be some kind of standard," Mr. Mills said.
But he noted that council has approved a request to fly an AIDS awareness flag in the fall.
"It’s not just a gay disease," he said. "It affects many people."
Mr. Mills didn’t rule out a future debate in the council chamber — in public — about the gay-rights flag issue.
Anti-gay remarks spark outrage
Rally to protest Truro’s refusal to fly gay pride flag
By AMY PUGSLEY FRASER City Hall Reporter | 5:01 AM
A Truro woman is so incensed by her mayor’s stand on homosexuality that she has organized a rally in Truro today in support of gay pride.
"I don’t like to see anyone so marginalized and discriminated against," Sharon Farrell said in an interview Sunday night about her rally in Victoria Park.
"It’s solidarity with the gay community. To let our mayor know that not all of Truro agrees with his decision."
Last week, Truro town council voted 6-1 not to fly the gay rights rainbow flag to honour the community’s inaugural gay pride celebration.
In explaining the decision, Mayor Bill Mills told The Chronicle Herald that, as a practising Christian, he personally doesn’t condone homosexuality or support same-sex marriage.
He questioned whether Truro town council should even be seen as endorsing gay pride by flying the flag at its town hall.
Mrs. Farrell said council’s one-sided vote against raising the flag wasn’t what bothered her.
"The flag thing wasn’t a huge thing for me . . . it was all of the reasons he gave for it that didn’t hold water for me."
The married mother of three said she eagerly took on the social issue.
"As the saying goes, ‘I have friends that are gay,’ but I truly do: I have many gay friends. And this is not a lifestyle people choose; nobody would choose to be ostracized and lose contact with family, friends, through all of this, to be shunned by their community.
"And the language that was used by our mayor, I was just appalled."
She has never voted for Mr. Mills over his 10-year career as mayor, she said, and doesn’t plan to start now.
In fact, many postings on a page Mrs. Farrell started on Facebook, the social networking website, suggest Truro residents should vote Mr. Mills out of office in the next municipal election.
The mayor wasn’t available for comment Sunday night. He told The Chronicle Herald in an earlier interview that he knew the time would come when his personal views on homosexuality would be outed.
"I’ve been expecting this for 10 years," he told a reporter.
Halifax Mayor Peter Kelly, who took a few jabs over the years for not taking part in the city’s gay pride parade until this year, had no comment on the decision made by Mr. Mills and Truro town council.
"For us, we’re a diverse community and that’s the reason that everyone in HRM is part of HRM," he said in an interview Sunday night.
"Most groups that ask for proclamations or special events and/or special flag raisings, it’s part of our ongoing policy that we have here in HRM and we treat all equally and fairly."
In a town the size of Truro, with a population of about 12,000, it’s important for a town council to be supportive, Mrs. Farrell said.
Being gay in Truro would be hard, she said.
"In 2006, I organized along with a minister from St. Andrew’s United Church — two straight people — a national day against homophobia because gay people (here) are just so afraid to let it be known. Because it is that bad here."
She’s not sure how many gay people live in Truro because, she said, it is such an "underground population."
But she hoped to unify a few of them by starting the Facebook group a few days ago.
"Putting the group up (on Facebook) was more of an outlet for me and I thought that some of my friends would join and that would be it," she said. "But it’s just going on and on — it’s just click, click, click, click, click, the number of people that are coming on."
By Sunday night, her group had 600 members, with the rally growing out of that support.
"It’s very last-minute," she admitted Sunday evening about the 1 p.m. gathering, which will include speakers and guests from provincial pride associations.
"But we encourage people to show up wearing the colours of the rainbow, painting their faces, anything they can to show their solidarity."
There’s currently no annual gay pride parade in Truro.
"But we’re hoping that this will kick-start it, if nothing else."
