Dear Editor: I think that the Springdale town council, perhaps especially in the person of the mayor as casting a deciding vote, was not only within its rights but acted quite rightly in deciding not to have a crosswalk painted in the colours of a rainbow as requested by LGBT students at a school in the town. Crosswalks are meant for the protection, from motorized traffic, of all pedestrians equally; they are not meant for the celebration of particular pedestrians on the basis of “this is who they are,” which appears to be chiefly the basis on which LGBT persons seem to claim to celebrate their diverse orientations. Deference to persons on the basis of personality has no place in public life, and it is with public life, at the local level, that municipal councils are concerned.
It seems to me that painting a crosswalk in a pattern favoured especially, and it seems only, by LGBT persons would be much the same sort of thing, though perhaps not carried to the same extent, as naming streets after LGBT persons just because these are LGBT and not because these LGBT citizens had rendered some sort of signal civic service – other than contributing to the community’s diversity by being who they are, which is a contribution hardly anyone can help contributing to the place where he lives. If a group exclusively LGBT provided a town’s only fire-protection service, for instance, this sort of public recognition would be in order. But a street surface is in any case no place for any sort of flag, especially since crosswalks ought to be uniformly recognizable as crosswalks, for the sake of pedestrians’ safety, and therefore the more “pedestrian” their appearance the better.
Vituperation from celebrities in reply to this argument, which I believe the mayor of Springdale has already presented if not in exactly those words, does not refute this argument and is indeed hardly an attempt at rebutting it.
Colin Burke
Port au Port
