18 June—This morning’s Republican-American carries the results of yesterday’s informal poll: “Would you be opposed to your town/city putting up rainbow flags for Pride Month? Yes, I would not like that, 63%; No, I would be okay with that, 37%.”

If you weren’t aware, that’s LGBT or Gay Pride Month. (For some reason, Q isn’t in it.) I don’t know why “gay” was left out of the RA’s question. But the respondents obviously knew. And, given the newspaper’s circulation area and readership, that’s certainly why the lopsided majority of respondents to the carefully but poorly worded poll were opposed to a municipality displaying the rainbow flag.

The poll was inspired by a story in yesterday’s RA about Goshen’s new first selectman, Todd Carusillo, planning to propose an ordinance banning the display of politically themed flags on town property. Carusillo allegedly was responding to “numerous” complaints about the colorful gay pride flag being displayed next to Goshen’s town hall.

One wonders whether a flag recognizing something more in tune with Goshen’s strongly conservative values (to put it nicely) than gay pride would have drawn numerous (or any) complaints.

Carusillo specified that the ordinance he’ll propose for Goshen will be similar to the one just enacted in April by the Southington star chamber (town council) on a party-line vote (Republicans for, Democrats against, somewhat surprisingly.), where only the U.S., state, town, and POW/MIA flags are now permitted to be flown on town flagpoles.

Southington put it this way: “In adopting this ordinance [§144-6], the Southington Town Council declares that flagpoles owned or maintained by the town of Southington are not intended to serve as a forum for free expression by the public, but rather as a non-public forum for the display of the flags authorized herein, as government speech.” The self-incriminating wording of Southington’s unconstitutional ordinance appears to apply only to flags, so presumably everything else is permitted. But don’t be surprised if further restrictions are inferred and enforced by the municipal morons.

Supporters of the unconstitutional ordinance in Southington rationalized that the new rules were a way to maintain civic pride, stave off litigation, and avoid bureaucracy. Avoiding litigation is the only part the buggers really care about.

Would Goshen permit purely decorative, nonpolitical flags, as well as other adornments, like ribbons and medallions and plaques honoring veterans and recognizing the town’s history? Not on flagpoles, of course.

It’s entirely possible that the dastardly Borough of Litchfield’s (BOL) long-standing but only recently highly publicized, highly embarrassing unconstitutional ordinance against virtually anything being displayed on the hallowed Green paved the way for Southington’s maleficent legislation. The Litchfield Green is probably owned by the town, but neither town nor borough has commissioned a title search to confirm title either way.

You’ll recall that the Borough of Litchfield Board of Warden and Burgesses (BOLBOWAB) justified its effective abrogation of the First Amendment on legal advice from a hand-picked accommodating mouthpiece: you have to breach the First Amendment in order to continue breaching the First Amendment. That’s obviously tortious codswallop. Bullshit, to the rest of us.

I shouldn’t be at all surprised if the notoriously autocratic, imperiously arrogant, obdurately unreasonable, perversely uncooperative BOLBOWAB decided to ban display of virtually anything anywhere within its inviolable precincts in the near future. Just to show it can. For now, anyway.

Unlike the BOL and Southington, however, whose star chambers are empowered by charter do whatever they damn well please, the Goshen ordinance will have to be passed by a town meeting. Considering Goshen’s political complexion, it probably will pass. But at least the actual voters, exercising direct democracy, will be doing the dirty . . .