Petrelis Files

Video of San Diego's Half-Staff
Rainbow Flag for CO Shooting Victims

(The half-staff rainbow flag is at the :27 mark.)

The newly installed rainbow flag in Hillcrest gay neighborhood of San Diego, unlike the rainbow flag in San Francisco's Harvey Milk Plaza, is thankfully not subject to the same dumb rules preventing it from being lowered on select days to honor the dead.

It is disappointing and sad that the Merchants of Upper Market/Castro and the district's Supervisor Scott Wiener, ignored President Obama's proclamation lowering flags to show respect to the victims of the Aurora, Colorado, movie theater massacre. Maybe MUMC leaders and Wiener will look to the LGBT community of San Diego for leadership on how to use a rainbow flag in the heart of a gay neighborhood to weave LGBT Americans into the fabric of our nation.

As I watched the YouTube video showing San Diego GOP City Councilman and mayoral hopeful Carl DeMaio march in the city's Pride Parade on Sunday, and receive boos and thumbs-down from many people because he's accepted funds from anti-gay forces, I noticed the rainbow flag in the background.

At the :27 mark, the flagpole is clearly visible while the gay community's flag flies in the wind at a respectful half-staff position.

If the LGBT community of San Diego can lower its rainbow flag for the Colorado victims and at the request of our president and not have the world stop spinning, why in heaven's name can't the LGBT residents of the Castro do the same?