Photo by City of Surfside
Audio By Carbonatix
Surfside will hoist an LGBTQ pride flag at a June 2 ceremony to honor Pride Month, a move that bucks Mayor Shlomo Danzinger’s opposition to raising the rainbow symbol before the town has a flag-flying policy in place.
The town opted not to raise the flag last year after Danzinger claimed it would open a Pandora’s box of similar requests from religious groups, political advocates, and self-proclaimed Satanists. The mayor of the beachside enclave justified his stance by citing a May 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that found the City of Boston could not reject a group’s request to raise a Christian flag at city hall after the city allowed hundreds of other flag-flying requests to move forward.
In August, after Surfside residents protested the town’s decision, the town commission voted 3-2 to recognize Pride Month 2023 and fly the rainbow flag, which will be raised at the Surfside Community Center on Collins Avenue.
“Pride Month is all about acceptance and inclusion,” town manager Hector Gomez stated in a press release. “This symbol of solidarity for the community demonstrates what a welcoming and diverse place Surfside really is.”
The mayor maintains his stance that town-owned flagpoles should be reserved for government flags unless and until the commission adopts a flag-raising policy that will guide the town in handling future requests.
“During our town commission meeting last June, I expressed my support for Pride Month, Juneteenth, and emphasized the importance of tolerance while condemning bigotry and racism in my opening remarks to the community,” Danzinger tells New Times in a statement. “I fully endorsed a resolution for Pride Month. However, what I did not support was the use of our government flagpole to promote a specific message without a town policy in place that would grant equal opportunities to all organizations.”
Though the flag-flying issue was voted on last year, the debate continued in monthly commission meetings over how deeply involved Surfside should be in pride celebrations. For this year’s flag raising, resident Brian Bey proposed that the town plan a gay pride event and wrap a police car in colors highlighting diversity and inclusion.
“On this particular issue, there’s no straddling of the fence,” Bey said at the March commission meeting. “The question at hand here: Is Surfside a town of diversity and inclusion or not? I think the answer [to] that question is in each of your hands.”
Neither a Pride parade nor Bey’s suggested pride-themed police car will materialize, according to Danzinger, who says he’s opposed to using taxpayer money on an event that “caters to one group.”
“As a small town, our commitment to inclusivity and equality is that all town-sponsored events should be all-inclusive and not catered to any specific group or nationality,” the mayor says in his statement, adding that the town has not hosted Hispanic or Jewish parades despite being home to a sizable population of those demographics.
At the March commission meeting, Bey countered the mayor’s stance by giving examples of the town’s promotion of cultural events on Thursdays and Saturdays, including one event to highlight Hawaiian culture with a luau night that included performances by a Polynesian band and dancers.
The 2022 Supreme Court ruling that precipitated Danzinger’s angst tackled whether Boston engaged in “government speech” when it allowed outside groups and organizations’ flags to be raised at city hall. Municipal officials had turned down Camp Constitution’s request to fly a Christian flag, claiming Boston didn’t want to give the appearance that it was speaking out in favor of a religion in violation of the First Amendment’s so-called Establishment Clause’s separation of church and state.
The court ruled unanimously against the City of Boston, with Justice Stephen Breyer, a Bill Clinton appointee, indicating that the city had “no written policies or clear internal guidance” on flag-flying and had previously maintained a “come-one-come-all attitude” to raising flags. Accordingly, Boston would be neither engaging in government speech nor endorsing a religion by allowing the Camp Constitution flag to fly, but rather providing a public forum for a private group to express free speech, Breyer wrote.
After the drama in Surfside played out in 2022, Republican legislators in the statehouse aimed to make Florida’s government flag-flying debates a moot point.
A bill to ban the display of all but a handful of flags at Florida government buildings was introduced in February by Republican Florida Rep. David Borrero of Sweetwater. HB 1011 would have allowed government buildings in the Sunshine State to fly only the Florida flag, the American flag, the state’s official Firefighter Memorial flag, and the U.S. military’s POW-MIA flag, which honors prisoners of war and those who went missing in action.
HB 1011 died in the Constitutional Rights, Rule of Law & Government Operations subcommittee on May 5. So pride flags and other cultural symbols can still fly at Florida government buildings depending on each local government or municipality’s policies.
The Town of Surfside’s press release notes that elected officials will attend and speak at the LGBTQ flag-raising ceremony next month.
Danzinger says he’ll be unable to attend because he’ll be out of town at the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
