US lets rainbow flag fly
The United States embassy hung its flag at half-mast for the mass shooting of eight people in Atlanta this week but the unfurling of another flag was a cause of celebration.
Staffers at the embassy in Thorndon have decided to fly the pride flag and highlight the rainbow colours, for what they believe is the first time in the outpost’s history, to join in on pride festival celebrations.
Public affairs officer Leslie Goodman said flying the pride flags was a reflection of the new Biden Administration’s progressive policies – which included a reversal of a ban on transgender people serving in the military. Not that they weren’t allowed to fly the pride flag before, she said.
Two flags were to be hung from the new facade of the US embassy – the original rainbow flag and the more recently designed progress pride flag, which has a triangle of colour representing people of colour and transgender people.
New Zealand’s first openly transgender parliamentarian, Georgina Beyer, was invited to help unfurl the flags. She said it was a ‘‘special, sincere’’ affirmation of the rainbow community.
‘‘This is a symbolic gesture that we in New Zealand can be proud of.’’
US embassy staffer Autumn Jackson and her wife, Deneen, posted to New Zealand after a stint in Pakistan, tugged at a rope to unfurl the progress pride flag.
‘‘It means that we are proud and that we represent our LGBTQI communities,’’ Jackson said. ‘‘There has been somewhat of a shift from the first time that I joined the State Department in 2015. This was right when it became a federal law ... for same sex marriage to be legal.’’
Jackson said New Zealand was a lot more open than other countries, something she had witnessed at Auckland’s Pride March.
‘‘Just to be able to see the diversity of people, all coming together and kind of supporting one another, is really awesome and I think that is what New Zealand represents.’’