HomeMy WebLinkAbout07-08-25 Public Comment - A. Keegan - Support For Pride Flag in BozemanFrom:Andrew Keegan
To:Bozeman Public Comment
Subject:[EXTERNAL]Support For Pride Flag in Bozeman
Date:Tuesday, July 8, 2025 11:04:21 AM
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My name is Andrew Keegan, and I write this comment in fervent support of adopting the Pride flag as Bozeman’s
official flag.
As a university educator, I teach students to think critically about how gender and sexuality structure our lives, how
some of us disproportionately benefit or are disadvantaged by these aspects of our identities, and how in recognizing
these dynamics we can practice empathy and compassion to create a more equitable, safe, and welcoming
community and world. At its core, the university is a space prefaced on the exchange of diverse—and without
previous exposure, often discomforting—perspectives and lived experience, and we are made all the better for it. I
know how proud residents of Bozeman are of MSU, but that sense of pride is misinformed if it does not embrace these
values, that diversity, inclusivity, and compassion are strengths to our community.
Fittingly, the City of Bozeman should not waiver to take pride in moving to adopt the Pride flag as its official flag. To do
so is not merely to gesture toward a single community—it is a reckoning with our collective identity. It is a moral
decision to recognize and center the lives and voices of those who have been pushed to the margins. It is a way of
saying, without apology: in this city, humanity is not conditional; dignity is not up for debate; all are welcome.
For decades, the Pride flag has stood both as a quiet yet radical act of resistance and a radiant expression of selfhood
and self-love. It was born out of the necessity of LGBTQ people to affirm their self-worth in a world, in too many ways
not so much different from that we know today, that has pathologized, moralized, and arbitrarily legislated their
existence and their desire to simply live their lives as who they are. It has been waived by those who had and continue
to have every reason to feel unwelcome and every reason to give up on institutions such as this one. And yet, despite
that—or maybe because of it—the Pride flag endures. It invites us, as a community, to be—as so many LGBTQ people
have needed to be—courageous, not comfortable.
Adopting the Pride flag as the official flag will allow us to reflect on this moment with collective pride in our posterior
as a city and a university town, an inherently progressive and forward-looking institution, that hadn’t simply tolerated
personal difference but protected and celebrated it. We will be able to say without shame or excuse that we had done
the right thing.
Some will say that the Pride flag is political. Ultimately, every flag is political. In this moment, our choice is not
whether to make a statement but rather what kind of statement we are willing to make. Do we cling to a neutral
symbol that pretends unity exists where injustice and systemic inequality are still present? Or do we take a stand,
publicly, morally, and unmistakably, to affirm the dignity of some of our most vulnerable and the value they contribute
to our community?
I urge you to adopt the Pride flag as the official flag of our city—not because it is easy, but because in light of the
nationwide attack on queer people, legislatively and culturally, it is right.
Thank you,
Andrew