Mayor Under Fire for Blocking LGBTQ Pride Flag From Flying

A Pennsylvania mayor is under fire and being accused of discrimination after he blocked a pre-approved flying of the LGBTQ Pride flag at city hall Monday, just minutes before the ceremony was scheduled to start.

Reading, PA Mayor Wally Scott denied members of the local LGBTQ community from hoisting the rainbow flag at city hall for what would have been the first time ever, Jeremy Long at the Reading Eagle reports. Dozens had traveled to see history being made. Instead, they were forced to witness a different kind of history.

Acting Managing Director Osmer Deming says Mayor Scott’s reason for blocking the flag is that he thinks the LGBTQ community is a “political movement,” and political movements shouldn’t get special treatment.

“What we can do today is hold a flag up in front of the building and still have a ceremony,” Council President Jeffrey S. Waltman Sr. said.

In the end members of the group vowed to file a discrimination complaint, and walked the flag to a local area hotspot where Mayor Scott is known to “hang out.”

“Our flag is being kept off the pole,” resident Ernie Schlegel said. “I’m going to be talking to the human relations commission about this and see if we have a stand for discrimination.”

WFMZ adds the LGBT Center of Greater Reading called Mayor Scott’s move “a show of blatant, unacceptable discrimination.”