Vox’s motion fails in the Assembly to ban banners like the rainbow flag in institutions

The motion of the Vox Parliamentary Group that sought to ban banners such as the rainbow flag in public institutions by creating “a complaint channel” and sanctions for “breach of the principle of ideological neutrality” was met this Thursday with the firm opposition of the rest of groups of the regional Chamber.

Only the deputies of Abascal’s party voted in favor of an initiative that would go against the LGTBI Equality Law of the Region, approved unanimously in 2016, by virtue of which the public powers must display the collective’s flag both the June 28, LGTBI Pride Day, like May 17, for the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia.

During her speech, the spokeswoman for Podemos, María Marín, unfurled the rainbow flag from her lectern as a sign of protest and harshly criticized the motion proposed by the Vox parliamentarians. Marín reasoned that defending ideological neutrality “is something very different from what Vox intends”, since said neutrality consists of “defending due respect and active surveillance of compliance with the fundamental rights established in the Spanish Constitution.”

Marín stressed that the rainbow flag “unlike others, is not opposed to or replaces any other”, but rather “is complementary to the flag of the Region of Murcia, with the flag of Spain, with the black flags of mourning for the Mar Menor and even with the flag of a football team». The purple deputy recalled that it symbolizes “a message of peace, love and respect for diversity”, that is to say “live and let live” and that tens of thousands of people from the Region of Murcia are represented and made visible in it. “We live in a respectful and open region, and it is a source of pride that the rainbow flag flies at the seat of popular sovereignty,” added the spokeswoman for Podemos.

Marín stressed that the rainbow flag “is not ideological” and reproached the spokesman for the Vox Parliamentary Group, Juan José Liarte, for seeing ideology in “respect for all citizens and citizens, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity”, but do not consider it a lack of neutrality to “give rosaries to schoolchildren, as the head of Vox did in Guadalupe” or subsidies for hunting and bullfighting schools in which minors participate.

reading a manifest

The socialist deputy Antonio Espín, after reading a manifesto in support of the LGTBI collective at the doors of the Regional Assembly, accompanied by the spokesman for the Socialist Parliamentary Group, Francisco Lucas, the deputy spokesperson Carmina Fernández and the deputy Lara Hernández, called the failed motion “ aberration consented by the right of this Region».

“Today we should have read an institutional declaration against LGTBIphobia in the Regional Assembly, as a sign of denunciation and rejection by all the deputies of this house of the hate crimes that LGTBI people in the Region of Murcia suffer daily. But, for a change, the extreme right has rejected our proposal, with the collusion of its partners in the Popular Party and the turncoats who occupy the Government, ”lamented Espín.