New Yorkers return Pride flag to Stonewall after Trump administration removed it

By Aleksandra Michalska and Roselle Chen

NEW YORK, Feb 12 (Reuters) – New York officials on Thursday hoisted a large rainbow Pride flag over the Stonewall National Monument that was removed by the Trump administration earlier in the week.

Hundreds of people flocked to New York’s Lower Manhattan to return the flag to the monument, which marks the birthplace of the modern U.S. gay rights movement.

The act of defiance against the Trump administration was carried out during a ceremony led by Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal and attended by city, state and federal elected officials.

“The community should rejoice. We have prevailed,” Hoylman-Sigal said shortly after the flag was hoisted. “Our flag represents dignity and human rights.”

A U.S. Department of Interior spokesperson declined to say whether the department, which governs the agency with federal oversight of Stonewall, would remove the flag again.

The flagpole and monument are in Christopher Park, marking where gay, lesbian and transgender New Yorkers rioted and protested in response to a late-night police raid of the Stonewall Inn in 1969, a time when such raids of gay bars were commonplace. The Stonewall uprising was a watershed moment in the gay rights movement.

The decision to remove the flag from the landmark outraged New Yorkers like Mike Hisey, who described it as an act of violence by President Donald Trump’s administration on the LGBT community.

Nichole Mallete, also of New York, said the LGBT community would not be intimidated.

“So he wants to take our flag. Go ahead. Because we have a million more to put up,” Mallete told Reuters.

The National Park Service has federal oversight of Stonewall and other national U.S. monuments. The agency said earlier this week that it managed the flagpole at Stonewall and that the flag had been removed to ensure a “longstanding policy” was applied consistently across its sites.

The Interior Department spokesperson on Thursday called the move to return the flag to the monument a “political stunt.”

“Today’s political pageantry shows how utterly incompetent and misaligned the New York City officials are with the problems their city is facing,” a department spokesperson said when reached for comment.

(Reporting by Aleksandra Michalska and Roselle Chen in New York; Writing by Jasper Ward, editing by Deepa Babington)