The many-hued gay pride flag now flies high at the Ulster County government building in Kingston, hoist aloft Monday at a late afternoon ceremony before a gathering of local officials, government workers and activists. The banner sits below the flags of New York State and Ulster County, across the plaza from a companion pole bearing the flags of the United States and of POW-MIA remembrance — like a mirror of the latter, a tribute to the prisoners and missing of America’s culture war over sex and identity.

The kick-off event of Pride Month here in Ulster County — in June, because the celebration originated in honor of the June 1969 Stonewall Uprising in New York City, when lower Manhattan’s gay community rose up to protest police raids of Greenwich Village’s Stonewall Inn — the flag raising’s speakers took turns describing the banner’s purpose and meaning.

“It signals to others that wish harm upon my community that their hatred is not welcome here,” said Phoenix Laxton, an artist-musician-cat fancier-roller derbyist and Program Specialist at the Hudson Valley LGBTQ+ Community Center in Kingston. “We should feel welcome and protected in the place that we call home. And I have to say — and this message is for those who have a lot of opinions when it comes to trans people — we are human beings just like you, entitled to joy and happiness just as you are. Maybe our joy looks a little bit different than yours, but that's OK. And I encourage everyone to never stop learning, and to know that it's OK to be wrong sometimes.”

“Putting up this flag is not just hoisting some fabric on a rod,” said Duchess County middle-school teacher (and yearbook advisor) Eve Papp, board president of the New Paltz Pride Coalition. “It is a bat signal that Ulster County stands with us, watching over us, in this fight with us — and they want everyone to know.”

On the theme of “rainbows and resistance,” Papp said, “Unfortunately, you cannot have rainbows without the rain, and you cannot understand peace without knowing your opponents.”

Name-checking “The executive branch, headed by He Who Shall Not Be Named and He Who Does Not Release Files,” Papp implored our “one nation with justice for all” to “do your job … figure it out and get involved … If you are not being hit by the stones thrown at us, you are not standing close enough.” (At which words County Executive Jen Metzger moved noticeably closer to Papp’s side.)

Speaking “directly to the young people of our county,” Ulster County Legislature Chair Peter Criswell (D-Kingston) said, “You have a home in Ulster County. You are seen, you are heard, you are protected, and more than that, you are celebrated — for exactly who you are. This flag serves as a reminder of that promise throughout Pride Month and every day that follows.”

“No one should have to live feeling unsafe for being who they are,” said concluding speaker Ulster County Executive Jen Metzger. The flag, she said, “is an expression of what we believe in, that everyone should feel safe, should be able to thrive, should not have to worry that they're being discriminated against … I call upon our residents to commit to a safe, respectful, inclusive county that recognizes the inherent dignity of all people and their rights to self-determination and creative expression.”

Still to come in this Pride Month are, in Kingston, the Hudson Valley Pride March and Pride Festival on Saturday, June 6 and on June 7, the New Paltz Pride March & Festival. (See https://www.lgbtqcenter.org/pride and https://www.newpaltzpridecoalition.org/). The Kingston events will be followed by an all-night dance party at Unicorn Bar where, as they like to call it, it’s “Gay Endurance Month” (for all the crap they have to put up with).

County Chief Diversity Officer Dina Suggs will be present at both marches and festivals to conduct “listening sessions” to hear the personal stories of community members, “their concerns, experiences and suggestions.” County Human Rights Commission Specialist Kathleen Harrison will participate in the Saturday listening; that body’s Director Joe McDonald will participate on Sunday.

As Suggs, who served as emcee at the flag raising told Kingston Wire via email, “We must hear directly from the community in order to clearly understand its concerns so county government can effectively support it.”