LISTOWEL – With Pride Month in full swing, North Perth has raised a Pride flag at its municipal office for the second time in history.
A group of community members, public sector employees and allies gathered at the municipal office in Listowel on June 8 to celebrate the raising of the flag. The flag was raised in honour of Pride month and will fly until the end of June.
Mayor Todd Kasenberg took the podium to address the crowd gathered.
“So, as representative of the council of the Municipality of North Perth and as mayor of this community, I am honoured to be here again today, the second annual raising of this Pride flag at this municipal building. I am here with pride, that this flag raising can take place in our small community.”
“I want to wryly take note, the sky has not fallen since we first raised the flag here a year ago,” joked Kasenberg. He then spoke to the opposition received from the municipality’s flying of the flag.
“There was opposition a year ago to this flag flying here with some sense of dire consequence. Some in our community continue to work to block this activity, to move it to the periphery and perhaps to sustain the comfort of their privilege. Often, this is positive in the context of religious belief or cultural background. But governments and the municipal corporation here, are secular institutions not vehicles for proselytizing.”
“I will be forthright in my calling out this notion. That somehow we must curtail the celebration of Pride that recognizing the rights and dignity of each individual is somehow a bad idea. It is wrong headed. I remain frustrated by those who cannot look at the problems of intolerance and privilege in the eye and who busily assert that by recognizing groups who have experienced intolerance and prejudice so that we may show solidarity with efforts to see real change.”
Kasenberg then issued a call to action for all those in attendance.
“What it is is a call to us, to commune more, to be part of the community, to make efforts towards the community, to seek comfort in community. And I personally think that pride is, in fact, a critical element of that effort.”
Next, local Reverend Sarah Bruer addressed the crowd and told them her personal experiences with being a part of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community.
“Although I didn’t grow up here in Listowel, I grew up in another small, Ontario town. There, I got the message loud and clear. That being gay was not OK.
“Yet amidst that hatred. Many continued to love.”
She then goes on to explain what she is thankful for.
“Every day. I am grateful. I’m grateful to them that I can live the life I do as a married lesbian woman who works as a church minister. I’m grateful as well that my queer peers can live the lives they feel called to live.”
Bruer then goes on to explain that more work needs to be done in North Perth’s community for those who are part of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community.
“We have come a long way. At the same time, there are still queer kids growing up in this community. Who are getting the message that being gay is not OK. They are hearing it from their peers, who make fun of things that are gay. They’re hearing it from teachers and coaches and parents, whose implicit or explicit biases reinforce heterosexism and binary gender norms. They’re reading about it on social media posts. When Pride decorations get vandalized, town councils refused to fly flags. And protesters overwhelmed drag storytimes at libraries.”
The Reverend then closed by encouraging those in attendance that they aren’t solitary in their existence.
“(The Pride Flag) says to them, to me, and to everyone else who needs the reminder. You are not alone.”
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