The Fed's flag: Let it fly

Del. Bob Marshall, R-Manassas, whose antipathy to any recognition of Virginia's gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) residents is well-established, fired off a letter last week to Richmond Federal Reserve Bank President Jeffrey M. Lacker about its decision to fly the rainbow flag during Gay Pride month. Marshall accused the bank of endorsing "costly, anti-social, immoral behavior" and ended with a Reagan-like demand, "Mr. Lacker, take down that flag!"

Like the implied analogy to the Berlin Wall, Marshall's letter is an exercise in hyperbole, wrong on the facts, and wrong at its heart. While the letter deserves nothing more than quick passage to oblivion, with the flag flap rising to national attention, it's important to catalogue Marshall's errors and to highlight the injustice of his continued attacks on GLBT Virginians.

The "facts" Marshall cites are flat-out wrong or twisted beyond recognition. He says the flag is "in front of a federal building." It is not. The Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond is a private company with a board of directors elected mainly by member banks. It enjoys the free-speech rights of any American corporation.

Marshall claims the flag incites people to violate Virginia's sodomy law, "a class six felony," he adds ominously. That claim is legally pointless: The sodomy law has been unconstitutional since 2003. It is logically pointless as well, for even if the law were in effect, it would apply equally to straight as well as gay partners, including couples in traditional marriages.

Then the letter veers off into strange territory with language (about "illness," "venereal diseases" and "the population imbalance") worthy of a McCarthy-era Red Scare tract.

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Flying the rainbow flag is not an "attack on public morals" (Marshall's words).

As Sally Green, the bank's first vice president and chief operating officer, explained, "We are flying the 'Pride' commitment to the values of acceptance and inclusion."

The flag symbolizes one employer's belief that no one should face workplace discrimination because of who they are, a belief Equality Virginia's bipartisan polling shows is shared by 87 percent of Virginians, and a belief expressed in the nondiscrimination policies of 88 percent of Virginia's largest private employers, as documented in the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index.

In acknowledging June as Gay Pride month, the Richmond Fed is joined by neighbors like Dominion, Capital One, CarMax, MeadWestvaco, Owens & Minor and Verizon, plus municipalities and corporations all over the country.

Marshall's heart is simply in the wrong place on this issue. You can see this at the end of his letter when he quotes Thomas Jefferson saying there is "one code of morality" that applies to all persons.

To Marshall, this seems to mean that, by proclaiming itself an inclusive workplace, the Fed missed an opportunity to condemn relationships he doesn't like. Yet that is surely distorting the creed of the man who introduced to our polity the concept that "all men are created equal."

People are denied the opportunity to feel fully equal when they must hide their deepest emotional attachments during the workday, when they are told to be ashamed of the ones they love — and when the mildest public acknowledgment that they belong is called an attack on public morals.

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The rainbow flag is not about having sex. It is about employers and employees agreeing we must stop stigmatizing and silencing people for qualities that have nothing to do with their value as workers, colleagues, friends and neighbors.

The lesson we learned when racial and religious barriers to equality were removed is proving true again when the issue is sexual orientation: Individuals and institutions flourish when respect and the chance to excel are available to everyone. By flying a rainbow flag (appropriately beneath and smaller than Old Glory), the Richmond Fed is visibly asserting a simple principle of human rights and economic good sense.

Unfortunately, in Virginia, the public sector has yet to embrace the same commitment to equality that is so unexceptional in the private workplace. The General Assembly refuses to grant protection from discrimination to its gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered workforce. This despite Virginians supporting those protections nine to one.

Equality Virginia's mission today is bringing to state and local government workers the same guarantee of fairness and individual empowerment that corporate workers take for granted. Each year we get closer to this goal. Maybe it will just take a few more rainbow flags flying on buildings downtown to get our elected officials to realize that treating people as people is as ordinary and positive as a bright day in June.