Aquinnah will show its pride for the foreseeable future, which the town’s top official said affirms town values in the midst of a tense national political climate.
Previously, the up-Island town has only flown a Pride flag for Pride Month in June. But a Progress Pride flag is now on the town-owned pole at Aquinnah Circle well into July.
Town administrator Jeffrey Madison told the select board at its Tuesday meeting that now is not the time to take down the flag, and that further, it never will be.
The select board approved his recommendation at the meeting.
“Despite the fact that Pride Month has come and gone, in these days — of the Supreme Court making rulings that limit a woman’s healthcare, and seem to allow the execution of members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and any actions by a president that are unlawful, when books are being banned from libraries, when voting rights are being terminated — I feel that this community should express its feeling that all residents of the U.S. should have the same rights, and not hesitate to point that out,” Madison told The Times.
“People in this country need to stand up for those rights, and do everything at a grassroots level for those rights,” he added.
Aquinnah’s decision, and its lack of regulations for town-owned flagpoles, differs from other Vineyard towns. After the Supreme Court’s Shurtleff v. City of Boston decision sent municipalities scrambling to regulate flags on town property, Oak Bluffs, Chilmark, and West Tisbury approved similarly restrictive policies.
The Supreme Court’s unanimous decision, reached in May 2022, stated that the city of Boston violated the First Amendment when it denied a private group’s request to fly a Christian flag on a City Hall flagpole. The request concerned the hall’s third flagpole, where private groups had for more than a decade been allowed to fly flags.
A week after the decision, Oak Bluffs was the first Vineyard town to restrict flags on town flagpoles. Its interim policy approved only U.S., state, town, and official military and prisoner of war/missing in action flags. This also followed the Martha’s Vineyard NAACP asking the town to fly a Pride flag.
Late town counsel Ron Rappaport explained legal concerns at the time: “[If] the government is in favor of Pride Week, that’s fine. The government’s speaking. What the government can’t do is open the flagpole up as a public forum, and then decide what can be flown and what can’t be flown … once you open it up, you can’t pick and choose,” he said.
The town amended its policy a year later, allowing ceremonial flags to fly for up to 14 days at a time.
Madison told The Times that he was not interested in regulating flags on the town-owned flagpole in Aquinnah. “I don’t care what other towns do,” he said. “We don’t have any regulations about who or what.”
“Perhaps other towns would like to take our practices,” he suggested.
He also said that anyone’s concerns can be brought to a select board meeting.
When asked what would happen if Aquinnah received a request to fly a political flag, Madison did not entertain the question. “I won’t get into answering hypothetical questions,” he said.
Vineyard towns have recently been asked to fly more controversial flags. Last December, the Pro Life Legal Defense Fund asked West Tisbury to fly a flag reading “pro-life, pro-mother, pro-father, and pro-child.” The town then passed its policy, similar to Oak Bluffs’, though it did not allow ceremonial flags.
