Tampa Commissioner Wants Pride Flag Taken Down, Christian Employee Told Him It’s “Nearly Unbearable” To Look At

Stacy White says the flag, raised after the Orlando tragedy, is a divisive symbol [that] might create an uncomfortable workplace.
From: NewNowNext

 After the tragedy in Orlando, county commissioners decided to raise the rainbow flag outside the Hillsborough County Center in Tampa.

But just one day after it went up, Commissioner Stacy White complained the flag could be offending Christian employees and suggested it should be taken down.

 White, a Republican, said he received one anonymous complaint from a county employee, who said the flag was “nearly unbearable” for her to pass on her way to work and that it created a “hostile work environment.”

Commissioner White called the rainbow flag a “divisive, politically-charged symbol,” and asked human relations director Peggy Rowe if it could open the county up to a HR problem. If so, he suggested, perhaps the commission should remove it.

“It is still – in my view – unconscionable that the county administrator didn’t express to the board that this divisive symbol might create an uncomfortable workplace environment for many of his employees,” White wrote.

At this point, we’d like to mention that the commission only removed the Confederate flag from outside the Hillsborough County Center last year. And a Confederate memorial still sits outside the Hillsborough County Courthouse.

Back then, White said moving the flag would set “a dangerous precedent to try to erase or rewrite history.”

Meanwhile, in Alabama, Baldwin County Commissioner Tucker Dorsey said he would ignore President Obama’s order that flags be lowered to half-staff, because the mass murder of 49 people was not a “valid circumstance” for lowering the flag.