A Connecticut town council voted to ban the LGBTQ+ pride flag in government buildings almost immediately after coming under Republican control.
The Enfield Town Council voted in a meeting Monday to ban all flags from flying at government buildings save for the United States, Connecticut state, and military flags. The new policy, which went through with a vote of 6-5, replaces a 2022 policy that allowed the rainbow flag to fly during Pride Month in June.
While some the council members pushing the policy claimed to do so as a way to remain “neutral,” Councilor At-Large Gina Cekala, who voted against the measure, accused them of directly targeting the LGBTQ+ community and Pride flag.
“I think the real reason is you don’t want that Pride flag up on this town hall,” she said, “which is absolutely disgusting."
Tom Tyler, the interim town attorney, claimed at one point that if the the Pride flag was allowed to be flown, “ISIS could come in and want to display one, the IRA…basically anybody. You’d have to be content neutral and let everybody." He then went off-topic to accuse schools of trying to indoctrinate students with “transgender ideology.”
The decision came as a betrayal to many of the town’s residents, including Brandon Jewell of PFLAG Enfield, who noted that two of the Republicans voting to ban flags previously voted in favor of the 2022 policy that allowed the Pride displays.
read more: https://www.advocate.com/news/connecticut-pride-flag-ban-isis
As someone else pointed out all of those dietary restrictions can be due to allergies, I think it would be pretty fucked up to fund lunch for students but not allow those with allergies to get lunch at school. Even if only one student at the school has a specific diet that needs to be catered too, that wouldn’t be different than having one student that was blind being given the same opportunities at the public school in my view, and whatever small cost it might increase to do this is worth it to properly feed children.
You describe the sliding slope perfectly. I’d argue that the state should offer cash support for people with allergies like this. But you can’t expect all schools to prepare sepperate dishes for any allergies (be it gluten, shellfish, nuts etc) and on top of this to chosen preferences like vegetarian, vegans etc. That’s how our (I live in Scandinavia) accommodate for children (and adults) with disabilities. People are offered help for what the need help with bit don’t offer the same helt for everyone. My example is not against treating others well. It’s about not discriminating. You can’t treat one well and not everyone else
I agree that a school doing each individual students meal like that would be inefficient, and yeah it’s better if you have a rare allergy or condition to just prepare food yourself haha. I think there are larger groups that can be recognized that have specific diets like kosher, halal, vegetarian etc that are not so rare that it isn’t a massive undertaking to have that as well. Maybe like if a certain percentage of students have a diet the school would prepare that.
I am not that much into school diets. But I know there is more to it than meets the eye. They, as far as I know, consider energy intake, vitamins, where the products are sourced and also try to effecrivate purchases so that they can maintain a budget. But again. The example was only to illustrate that you have to set a line somewhere, and decide who you can accommodate for or not. Not accommodating for any is the easiest way not to have to explain.