Pride flag fight pits veterans against gay rights advocates in NJ town

A New Jersey mayor has ordered a Pride flag that has flown from the borough hall flagpole each June for years to be taken down and moved — and gay activists complain he’s hidden it behind trees in the back of the building.

Sayreville Mayor Kennedy O’Brien said he moved the flag because he doesn’t want to be “in the flag business” after complaints from local veterans — but pro-LGBTQ town residents say he’s covering up the gay community during pride month.

“This Council and its Mayor have reverse engineered bigotry,” resident Anthony Sposato, told My Central Jersey.

The LGBTQ advocate organization Garden State Equality notes that the rainbow banner had flown in front of the municipal building during Pride month for the last four years, the group said in an Instagram post.

“This year, Mayor Kennedy O’Brien has decided to hide the beacon of acceptance in the trees behind Borough Hall,” the group wrote.

Sayreville Borough Hall Google

The move comes as the town pushes a proposed rule that would ban specialty flags — such as the Pride flag — over the municipal building, the outlet said.

The proposal — pushed mostly by veteran groups that don’t want the Pride flag fluttering from a flagpole they thought was devoted to the military — would declare that only the state, national and POW/MIA flags could fly in front of the Borough Hall in Sayreville, New Jersey.

Under the proposed ordinance — scheduled for a final hearing July 15 — the Pride flag and other specialty flag could be flown on other parts of the town property, the outlet said.

“As I fly the Pride flag, I have to fly practically every flag,” Mayor Kennedy O’Brien said, claiming he’d had to hire someone to keep track of what flags fly when.

“It’s a lot of work if we go into the flag business,” he said, according to the outlet. “My first instinct is I really don’t want to be in the flag business because it’s going to be cumbersome and I’m going to only make people unhappy because somebody else’s flag went up.”

“It’s a recipe for unhappiness, because nobody’s gonna’ be happy.”

Sposato, however, said that LGBTQ-supporters in the local community will fight the move.

“If the mayor is looking for dopey [expletive], he’s looking on the wrong side of this dais. Because the Sayreville I know and I fight to represent is full of people who are caring and compassionate — often in different ways, often in ways that we do not agree about — but who care nonetheless.”

Earlier this month, Ken Kelly, a former councilman who also chairs the local Veterans’ Alliance, told elected officials that the Pride flag was “a matter of great controversy and anxiety to our fellow veterans” because they thought the flagpole was dedicated to honoring the military.

“The American flag and the POW flag have long been prominently displayed as testimony to their service,” Ken Kelly said. “We ask for nothing except that the American flag and POW flag be the only authorized colors to be flown at Borough Hall.”

O’Brien claimed the debate wasn’t about if the Pride flag should fly, but where.

But many dismissed that, with one resident, Bill Henry, saying the mayor was mocking the Pride flag by posting it where nobody could actually see it, MyCentralJersey said.

“You have children of Sayreville questioning themselves about their sexuality and saying the mayor has no empathy or understanding of me or the gay community,” Henry said.

Chris Cannella, chairman of the New Jersey Education Association’s Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Committee, echoed these comments.

“A couple years ago, your (governing) body said, ‘Yes, we’re gonna fly this flag,’” he said.

“I think what you had in place, the recognition of LGBTQ+ people, is important.”