Chris Powell: Teachers politick on the job; ‘The Ukrainian lady’

A gay pride flag

MANCHESTER, Conn.

Connecticut schools deny that they propagandize students, but the other week the state's teachers gloried in their propagandizing on the job. Members of the state's largest teacher union, the Connecticut Education Association, dressed in red to participate in the union's "Red for Ed Day of Action," demonstrating and soliciting support for several school-related bills pending in the General Assembly and endorsed by the union.

The bills weren't controversial but the union's directing its members to campaign for the bills on the job could not have been more political. Students, other school staff members, and parents were to notice the uniformity of color worn by the teachers, to ask about it, and heed the union's appeal. The teachers exploited their jobs for a political purpose and it's unlikely that any school administrators scolded them about it and told them to do their politicking on their own time.

Meanwhile in some towns around Connecticut the political left is trying to propagandize government flagpoles on municipal property, seeking to fly non-government flags on them to endorse various causes. This propagandizing was an issue in Southington, where the Republican majority on the Town Council voted to limit town government flagpoles to government's own flags.

Some people had wanted to put a rainbow "Pride" flag on a pole at Southington Town Hall, celebrating sexual minorities, and they construed opposition as signifying hate and oppression.

Though Connecticut long has been almost completely libertarian about sexual orientation, maybe some opposition to the "Pride" flag was badly motivated. But the argument for the restrictive policy was sound -- that if non-government flags are to be flown on government poles, some agency will always have to deliberate on their suitability and to take sides on their causes. After all, if a "Pride" flag can be flown at town hall, what about a Trump campaign flag or the red and black flag of the fascists who call themselves anti-fascists?

This is the sort of thing that easily turns into civil liberties lawsuits. Better to keep symbols of the state politically neutral and out of the culture war.

Besides, if, as the political left suggests, sexual orientation and even gender itself are entirely matters of the feelings that people are born with, what is there to be proud of? It's not as if sexual orientation and gender are somehow earned. Some people in Connecticut may deplore homosexuality or transgenderism anyway but no one proposes to deny the right of people to live their personal lives as they choose.

Indeed, these days to fly a "Pride" flag on a government flagpole or to parade with one is mostly to be looking for someone to give offense to, as if Connecticut's cordial indifference isn't good enough and, as in totalitarian countries, demonstrations of approval must be compelled.

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Even as the General Assembly, nearing adjournment, whirred furiously under the Capitol dome last week, it couldn't produce Connecticut's publicity stunt of the month. That was achieved a few blocks away, where a downtown Hartford bar changed its name from ‘The Russian Lady’ to “The Ukrainian Lady’’ in support of Ukraine's heroic resistance to Russian aggression.

The name change is to be only temporary. The stolid old lettering on the bar building's frontpiece remains under the blue and yellow banner that has been tied above the door. But for a few weeks patrons may be inclined to toast "Slava Ukraini!" and "Heroiam slava!" before stumbling home.

Unfortunately the war well may continue even after the blue and yellow banner comes down and the bar becomes The Russian Lady again, or maybe, as aggression continues, becomes The Moldovan Lady or The Polish Lady.

But even now bar patrons and everyone else should remember that many Russians are victims of the war, too, and not just the thousands of Russian soldiers killed, wounded or captured in a war few of them wanted. For the war has brought a comprehensive tyranny down on Russia and has cost all Russians what was left of the political liberty they gained with the dissolution of the Soviet Union 30 years ago.

So toast to Ukrainian liberty, but to Russian liberty. too.

Chris Powell is a columnist for the Journal Inquirer, in Manchester.