The Pride flag that hangs outside of Bee’s Knees General Store & Bakery, a cafe and community space in rural Nova Scotia, Canada, has been ripped down on four separate occasions. In the most recent instance, in January, the store’s owners, Sue Littleton and Candice Zaina, came in to see it had been trampled and covered in human feces.
“It wouldn’t occur to me to keep it down,” Littleton said. “We’re not going to let this stop us from providing a safe space.”
But they say they’re feeling more shaken after learning of the murder of Laura Ann Carleton, a California boutique owner shot dead by a man who tore down the Pride flag outside her Cedar Glen store. Before opening fire, the 27-year-old yelled homophobic slurs. Officials later said he had a history of posting hateful content online.
“Neither me or my wife have been sleeping well,” Littleton said. “When there’s a noise in the night, we think someone is coming to retaliate.” A week ago, the couple’s son and a friend were the victims of a homophobic attack at a county fair, which caused them to close the shop for a few days.
Littleton said it was important for her to fly the flag as there were not many queer spaces in their town, which has a population of 636. The nearest gay bar is a two-hour drive away in Halifax. “Young folks have found this to be a place where they can be themselves.”
The rainbow flag was designed for a 1978 San Francisco gay rights parade by the artist Gilbert Baker, who was tasked by Harvey Milk with creating a new symbol for the community. Until then, gay men had expressed themselves with a pink triangle, but that had been created by the Nazis to ostracize gay people. “We all felt that we needed something that was positive, that celebrated our love,” Gilbert later said.
After Milk was assassinated a few months later, demand for the flag surged. With its popularity came controversy: in 1988, a man in Los Angeles successfully sued his landlord, who first refused him the right to hang it outside his home.
The flag has been used in times of celebration: it was projected on to the White House after the supreme court ruled in favor of same-sex marriage. It has also been used to show solidarity with attacks on LGBTQ+ community, such as the mass shooting at Pulse nightclub in 2015.
“When a person puts the rainbow flag on his car or his house, they’re not just flying a flag,” Gilbert said. “They’re taking action.”
Many business owners and residents who own Pride flags have responded to the news of Carleton’s killing with concern and defiance. Krysta Cavin, of Providence Village, Texas, whose children are LGBTQ+, decorates her front yard in rainbow as a show of support.
“What message would I be sending my children if I stopped?” she asked. “It does scare me some, but not enough to stop what I am doing. Mama Bear will always fight for them.”
Across the country, as Republican lawmakers propose or pass legislation restricting the rights of LGBTQ+ people, the flag has become the target of attacks. School districts and towns in Delaware, Ohio, New York state, Utah, Michigan and Wisconsin have voted to ban the flag on public property or in schools.
Many anti-LGBTQ+ demonstrators are desecrating flags themselves. In June, a man was caught on home surveillance video setting fire to a Pride flag hanging on the front porch of a residence in Omaha, Nebraska. That same month, a flag flying outside the Tempe, Arizona, city hall was stolen and burned. There have been similar events in California, Utah, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, California and New York.
Bradley Smith and Eric Working are a couple who live in Costa Mesa, California. They first hung up their rainbow flag earlier this year, but took it down after having second thoughts.
“It felt like we just put a target on our house,” Smith said. “The initial discomfort was too strong. We decided to take it down and agreed to wait and display it during Pride month.”
They kept the flag up after Pride ended, only taking it down so it wouldn’t blow away in the winds caused by Hurricane Hilary. When they woke up to the news of Carleton’s murder on Monday, Smith said that he paused and thought about keeping the flag down, for fear of violence.
Some social media users expressed similar anxieties. “I have a flag but I am scared to put it outside,” one member of Mothers Against Greg Abbott, a group for liberal Texas moms, posted on Facebook. “We have some very vocal people in our small town and neighborhood, and I never want our political opinions to reflect against my kids’ education or safety.”
Kerry Daly Ruggi, a Suffolk county, New York woman, feels safe flying her flag. But she understands that others who live in less tolerant communities might feel differently. “Upholding the flag in the face of an antagonistic response is heroic, but it shouldn’t have to feel like that,” she said.
Jared Todd, senior press secretary for the LGBTQ+ advocacy group the Human Rights Campaign, said localities should offer protections to the LGBTQ+ community through laws and ordinances that keep Pride flags safe. “But a much more productive conversation would be what legislators can be doing right now to curb gun violence and the all-too-easy access to guns in this country,” he added.
“A rainbow flag in the window of a small business, a residence, or a community gathering spot is a clear and smiling sign to queer people that we will be welcomed and supported,” said Sarah Kate Ellis, president of Glaad. “The burden of the threat of vile anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and violence lifts, somewhat, when we enter a space adorned with a Pride flag.”
And despite rising anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes by an extremist minority, overall support for the LGBTQ+ community is higher than ever in the United States. According to Glaad, 91% of non-LGBTQ+ Americans agree that LGBTQ+ people should have the freedom to live their life and not be discriminated against, and 70% of non-LGBTQ+ Americans believe that businesses should publicly support the queer community.
Ultimately, Smith and Working’s flag went back up. “I felt compelled to display it again in her memory,” Smith said. “It’s a signal that we won’t be deterred by hatred.”
