Rainbow flags were raised in eight Oxford County communities to kick off Pride month and honor LGBTQ residents. But in one town, the event drew outsized significance amid a stern warning from police.
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Friday’s flag-raising events – actually nine, including eight communities and the Oxford County headquarters – happened throughout the day and, most significantly, the colors flew in Norwich following a contentious flag-ban debacle that led to political resignations and widespread headlines last year.
“We’ve had some issues in the past with the Pride flag or the Pride banners, but I think we’re definitely moving in the right direction. . . to be a community and accept everyone,” said Norwich Coun. Lynne DePlancke.
Norwich, a town of about 11,000 south of Woodstock, was thrust into the spotlight last year when the town’s politicians voted to ban the flying of non-government flags on any municipal property – which critics saw as a veiled way to ban Pride flags in the town, where a large Christian church plays an influential role. Politicians overturned the ban in January.
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Late Thursday, Ontario Provincial Police in Oxford County issued a statement saying they’re “committed to supporting” the LGBTQ community and that they have zero tolerance after a series of local Pride flag thefts last year.
“The OPP wants to remind the public that theft or vandalism of these flags are criminal acts and will not be tolerated,” the statement read, adding that “any individual who engages in any criminal act towards an identifiable group may face criminal and hate- motivated crime charges.”
Amid Norwich’s 2023 flag-ban controversy, one town politician, Alisha Stubbs, resigned in protest of the ban. And the council member who proposed the ban, John Scholten, also later resigned part-way through his four-year term, citing “personal and family reasons.”
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Consider a nod to LGBTQ inclusion, Pride and the associated Pride Progress flags have become common at schools and in other public spaces – but they’ve also become a flashpoint for controversy, particularly in rural parts of Southwestern Ontario.
But as the rainbow-colored flag was raised at Oxford County’s headquarters in downtown Woodstock on Friday morning, one local politician was focusing on the positive progress.
“I think it’s incredible to see where we’ve come from a year ago,” said Woodstock Mayor Jerry Acchione.
For DePlancke, the Pride flag-raising at the Norwich Community Center is historic – she says it’s the first flag, other than the township’s official one, to be raised on the facility’s newly installed flagpole.
“It’s not our differences that divide us, it’s our inability to recognize, accept and celebrate those differences,” DePlancke said.
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