Should Long Beach fly the LGBTQ pride flag year round at City Hall?

Second District Councilwoman Jeaine Pearce is starting her first term on the City Council with a recommendation to hoist the rainbow flag, a universal symbol for LGBTQ rights, at City Hall year round.

Pearce, who is in the first month of her four-year term, said the move would show support for the LGBTQ community both locally and nationwide as a fight for marriage equality continues.

“While there has been significant progress in the LGBTQ community’s fight for equal rights in the last few years, there is much more that needs to happen for true equality,” she wrote in a report on the item. “Some states have enacted blatantly discriminatory laws in a backlash to marriage equality and national efforts such as the equality act are stalled in Congress.”

Considering Long Beach’s strong stance on equal rights, she said flying the flag at City Hall every day would be a symbol that the city supports the LGBTQ community.

Pearce represents the second district in Long Beach, which encompasses The Center Long Beach, a gay rights advocacy organization that offers a number of community services, in addition to various LGBTQ establishments, including bars, coffee shops and restaurants.

Mayor Robert Garcia, who is openly gay, could not immediately be reached for comment as he is traveling back from the Democratic National Convention.

Each year, a rainbow flag flies high outside City Hall to signal the start of the aual gay pride festivities.

The aual Long Beach Pride Festival, which falls in the spring and includes an extravagant parade down Ocean Boulevard, is one of the largest revenue generating events for the city, second only to the Long Beach Grand Prix. Each year, the festival draws some 80,000 people to the two-day event centered around Shoreline Village.

In 2013, the city also flew the symbolic flag for a two-day period while waiting for the Supreme Court’s decisions on cases involving Proposition 8, the November 2008 Califoia law that outlawed same-sex marriage, and the Defense of Marriage Act, the 1996 federal law that doesn’t recognize gay marriage. Former 5th District Councilwoman Gerrie Schipske said at the time that the two-day period was nice, but she said maybe council ought to consider flying it for longer than that.

Throughout the city’s history, Long Beach has had three openly gay City Council members: Schipske, Garcia and former 2nd District Councilman Dan Baker.

The City Council will discuss Pearce’s item at Tuesday’s meeting, which begins at 5 p.m. at City Hall, located at 333 W. Ocean Blvd.

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