After announcing a “Space Needle Community Challenge” to raise $50,000 for local charities, the company behind the Space Needle now says it will fly the Pride flag this month no matter what. Details from Change.org:
Their new statement makes it absolutely clear that the Space Needle will raise the Pride flag during Seattle Pride weekend. They also want to continue to raise $50,000 through an online fundraiser to help four LGBT charities. This is a real win/win for everyone involved. Those passionate about the Pride flag will get to see it on the Space Needle again. Those who know how desperately our community needs financial support will have a tool to raise $50,000. The Space Needle kicked off the fundraiser with a $5,000 contribution of their own. more…
In the meantime, many in the Capitol Hill community have moved forward on their own as the Needle swayed on the issue.
Too bad
Let’s try this again. Is it too bad that the Space Needle Corporation is flying the Rainbow flag even without meeting the fund raising goal? I like the idea of doing this for ANY organization that wants to fly their private flag. Or did they pull back because they were going to fly other private flags, such as the 12th man flag, for free and knew they would get tagged as bigots?
Discuss.
The only way to stop intolerance is to stop talking about it. That may seem counter productive to gay rights activists but I’m referring to the social dialogue… not the political movement which should continue. There are other forces at work trying to divide us.
The Space Needle is owned by a private corporation, and no matter how iconic a symbol for Seattle this tower has become, I don’t expect them to have to put any flag on their tower. This may mean more symbolically to the GLBT efforts, but there are more meaningful and real ways to measure progress than to accuse a private corporation of bigotry for not advertising Gay Pride. I, for one, think it was a huge mistake to move the parade downtown and to Seattle Center. From a financial point of view, it’s a hugely expensive undertaking, and from what I understand, Pride’s coffers are already overdrawn. Pride should be a celebration of the GLBT community, and it should take place in the neighborhood that has the most identity with this community, which is Capitol Hill. There are business and services in this neighborhood that support us and that we frequent, and it would be nice to celebrate here.
What’s really pointless is to drag back out this “let’s move it back to Broadway” argument yet again. The parade had clearly outgrown Broadway, and the hugely increased attendance it’s had since it moved downtown easily bears that out. The businesses on Broadway still do very well during Pride weekend; and the Pride festival is still held on Broadway on Saturday anyway. Besides all that, Pride did a major tear-up on Volunteer Park, which the park clearly doesn’t need. Downtown is also MUCH more accessible for far more people, and easier for the city to clean up afterwards.
Regarding Pride being overdrawn– after the 1st year’s bad over-reaching, a private promoter now puts on the festival in Seattle Ctr. The parade itself is done by Seattle Out and Proud, and has actually been profitable after the first year.
I was one who wrote a letter of complaint to the Needle (as an ex-employee). Next day I wrote an apology, and today a warm thank you!
That they have always been a private company was not clear to me, you see.
I mentioned that I don’t expect flying the Pride flag to be an annual thing.
They earned my respect.
…that the same cretins that required some quit-smoking-or-whatever program for anyone setting up business inside a city park doesn’t much care about such policies when it comes to the Spice Noodle.