Petrelis Files

San Diego's Rainbow Flag
Lowered to Honor CO Massacre Victims

(An American flag at half-staff in front of the SD Gay and Lesbian News office, foreground, and in the distance, the rainbow flag at half in the city's gay neighborhood. Credit: Ben Cartwright.)

Over the weekend, San Diego's LGBT community celebrated their annual Pride events and also inaugurated an enormous rainbow flag on a 65-foot pole in the Hillcrest District, according to a report today from Ken Williams who is the editor of the San Diego Gay and Lesbian News.

Williams reported that the location of the flagpole is at the intersection of University Avenue and Normal Street, which is the traditional stepping off point for the Pride parade. I extend hearty congratulations to the San Diego community for erecting this pole and flying the LGBT flag.

In a phone interview, Williams told me many people were emotionally touched and full of pride when shortly after the rainbow flag went up for the first time. I told him that San Francisco's rainbow flag unfortunately was not lowered this weekend at Harvey Milk Plaza.

This note explained some of what took place down there:

San Diego Pride said during the flag-raising ceremony that it would lower the flag to half-staff after the event out of respect to the shooting tragedy in Colorado, as requested by President Barack Obama. Pride also held a moment of silence for the victims in the movie theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado.

It's a shame the LGBT community of San Francisco cannot say we also honored the president's request, lowered our flag and also observed a moment of reflection after the tragic shooting at the Colorado movie theater.

Here is a photo of the rainbow flag as it was being raised for it's debut run up the flagpole in Hillcrest. The photo was taken by Williams.

In other news today, the Merchants of Upper Market/Castro didn't lower the rainbow flag at Harvey Milk Plaza this morning and it was flapping in the wind as it normally does. Down at Civic Center in San Francisco, the American and California flags in front of the State Building were at half-staff.