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10/12/2005
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In Bloomington, Indiana, two teenagers made off with a rainbow flag that was hanging outside a local culinary shop and burned it, police said. The boys were referred to juvenile court and authorities are still evaluating whether or not to treat it as a hate crime. Police reported that the boys stole the flag because they said it was "unpatriotic." Bloomington recently announced the launch of a new campaign aimed at promoting tourism to the heavily gay and lesbian-populated city, which hosts the state's only gay radio show and is home to a popular LGBT film festival as well as the Kinsey Institute. Somehow I don't think the rainbow flag burning will make it in to the brochures, though the bucolic town does admit that it has seen its share of intolerance. (thanks jim)
Posted 1:46 PM EST by Andy in Elsewhere | Permalink
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Having lived and come out in Bloomington, I fear "bucolic" unfairly denigrates its unique atmosphere. In fact, it's hard to describe in one word period. It's like an ivy league college town colloidally suspended deep in one of the reddest states. "Oasis," perhaps, certainly within Indiana, and, in many ways, the Midwest generally. It typifies the "town-gown" conflict, particularly because the number of IU students [during the regular school year] is about the same as the number of permanent non-student residents. The size and quality of the school [superb music department--including opera--Eileen Farrell was once on the faculty--foreign language, science, and psychology departments, et al.] generally succeed in holding back the worst aspects of Hoosier smallmindedness that surrounds it. The fact that Kinsey did his research here [under the protective wing of closeted chancellor Herman Wells] remains a miracle to me, and, three decades later, I still tear up at the memory of people in the audience there before a recital suddenly standing and spontaneously applauding when they recognized Kinsey's elderly widow slowly moving to her seat, supporting herself with a tall, beautiful, handcarved walking stick. How often is one in the presence of Human History? The campus gay group-sponsored Halloween dancers were once THE divinely decadent events to attend, and gay conferences brought in the early icons of the movement. The deputy mayor is openly gay although no activist. Sadly, the inclusion of gays in their human rights ordinance is now mostly symbolic, however, as, after Bloomington passed, in the 70s, the first ordinance in the state that included gays, a lawsuit resulted in a state law being upheld that mandates that no local law can go further than any state law does. So, the gay section of their ordinance only encourages nondiscrimination--it no longer contains any power to penalize failure to comply. Of course, the flag incident falls under other laws. Indiana is a place to avoid living in if one can, but, if you must, plant your flag, rainbow or other, in Bloomington.
Posted by: Leland | Oct 12, 2005 5:46:49 PM
It would be difficult to justify prosecuting the flag burning as a hate crime. We live, like it or not, in a country where the burning of our national flag is considered "free speech". Not that crimes against Gay people are ever given much priority, but I would think that the burning of this Rainbow flag would be considered a criminal act, only because the flag was stolen. Maybe they also violated some local ordinance against outdoor burning.
There are any number of serious crimes where I would expend ANY amount of effort to see a Hate Crimes prosecution enforced. This isn't one of them. I'm afraid it would be perceived as crying wolf.
Posted by: Jay Croce | Oct 13, 2005 12:09:25 AM
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