The National Park Service has formally abandoned the Rainbow flag activists had provided to the National Park Service, relinquishing it to the City of New York.
The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation today gave assurances that the ceremony will go proceed and that flag will fly permanently.
This historic event had originally been planned as an historic first. It was to be the first time the LGBT flag was to wave over federally-funded land and the first time the Rainbow flag had been placed under the permanent stewardship of the National Park Service.
In an article for Gay City News, Andy Humm writes: ” When it saw the pre-publicity on the ceremony, the National Park Service under Secretary Ryan Zinke’s Department of the Interior worked to certify that the flagpole adjacent to Christopher Park was not technically on federal land so that no Rainbow Flag would be flying on US government property.
Humm continues: “Mindy Anderson, chief of communications for National Parks of New York Harbor, said, “The only federal property is within the fence line of Christopher Park and some of the gardens. The other area is of historical significance because of the history there for interpretation purposes.”
Anderson said that in the course of issuing a permit for this event, the Park Service learned that “the flagpole is not on federal property. It’s a separate monument to the first person killed in the Civil War. It has never been part of the Stonewall National Monument, although it is located there. The flagpole is not managed by the Park Service. We gifted the flag to New York City Parks,” which continues to administer Christopher Park with the Park Service.
