Last fall, we got permission to fly the Save Women’s Sports flag for a week on the Citizen Flag Pole in Nashua City Hall Plaza. We raised it on a Saturday, and early Sunday morning Nashua Mayor Jim Donchess sent two city employees to take it down.
Related: Hey, Governor Sununu – Your Former Supreme Court Justice says HB544 is Constitutionally Sound!
I appealed the flag’s removal and in the city’s response, Nashua City Attorney Steve Bolton stated:
It is the City’s position that the proper approach is to view the use of the flag pole as “government speech” where the City has reserved the right to determine the message that will be attributed to it.
When I was reading on GraniteGrok that bill HB544, which bans the teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT) in state-funded programs, is constitutionally sound, it occurred to me that the arguments for the right to ban the teaching of CRT are identical to the Mayor’s argument that he is justified in having my flag removed.
Both HB544 supporters and Mayor Donchess are saying that the government can dictate what speech is conveyed, or not conveyed, using our tax dollars.
So, if the NH Democrats claim that HB544 is against freedom of speech then they should agree that the removal of our Save Women’s Sports flag from the Citizen Flag Pole was also against my freedom of speech and demand that it be put back up.
