Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) announced on Sunday that he would be “introducing federal legislation to make the Pride Flag a congressionally authorized symbol.”
In a post on X, Schumer criticized President Donald Trump for attacking “not just the LGBTQ community,” but everyone who cares “about pride and equality” in New York City (NYC). Schumer added that he was “proud to stand with” people such as New York State Rep. Tony Simone (D) and New York State Sen. Erik Bottcher (D) to make his announcement.
“The Stonewall Inn is sacred ground,” Schumer wrote. “Last week, Donald Trump attacked not just the LGBTQ community, but all of us who care about pride and equality in NYC when he ordered the removal of the pride flag from the Stonewall National Monument.”
The move to make the pride flag a congressionally authorized symbol “would enshrine the flag with similar protections as the U.S. flag, military flags, POW/MIA flags and others recognized by Congress,” Fox News reported.
The Trump administration previously “removed a Pride flag from a national monument outside the Stonewall Inn earlier this month,” although the flag was later “reinstalled atop the pole outside the Stonewall Inn,” according to the outlet.
The removal of the flag came after the Department of the Interior issued a memo “ordering ‘non-agency’ flags at national parks be removed,” according to the outlet.
According to the National Park Service website, “Stonewall was a milestone for gay and lesbian civil rights that provided momentum for a movement.”
“In the early hours of June 28, 1969, a police raid on the Stonewall Inn provoked a spontaneous act of resistance that earned a place alongside landmarks in American self-determination such as Seneca Falls Convention for women’s rights (1848) and the Selma to Montgomery March for African American voting rights (1965),” the website explains.