A coming-out party in Village
A PARK across the street from the historic Stonewall Inn got a fitting tribute during a flag-raising ceremony Wednesday.
LGBT supporters raised a rainbow flag inside Christopher Park in the West Village as part of National Coming Out Day and the 30th anniversary of a momentous march in Washington urging more funds for AIDS research.
The permanent flag posting inside the federal park was not supported by the Trump administration. And a representative from the National Park Service did not speak at the event, which gay rights activists touted as the first time that the flag is displayed permanently on federally funded land.
Initially, the National Park Service supported the idea and planned to attend the press conference highlighting the flag raising, organizers said.
But federal park officials balked after Newsweek reported the gathering, community activist Ken Kidd said.
“We were told yesterday at 3 o’clock that they would not be participating because they were told by higher-ups that they could not,” Kidd said.Joshua Laird, head of National Parks of New York Harbor, acknowledged confusion about the feds’ role. He said he reached out to local organizers and offered to speak at the last minute, “but they felt it would be disruptive.”
Former President Barack Obama last year designated the Stonewall Inn a national monument. In 1969, bloody fights between cops who raided the Stonewall Inn and customers battling discrimination sparked the gay rights movement.