The San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors passed a resolution in July declaring June as Pride Month.
The resolution returned to the supervisors’ table as a consent agenda item after a stalled 2-0 vote on June 18. First District Supervisor John Peschong and 5th District Supervisor Debbie Arnold abstained from voting while 4th District Supervisor Jimmy Paulding was absent.
“It’s my understanding that after that meeting the chairperson [Arnold] agreed to put the item back on the agenda so that the entire board could consider it,” County Counsel Rita Neal told New Times.
At the July 9 meeting, the supervisors voted 3-0 in favor of the resolution, with Arnold dissenting. Peschong abstained, mirroring his action in June.
“This is one I voted ‘no’ on a year ago and will continue to vote ‘no’ on that. I don’t want anybody to take this as hatred and blow it out of proportion like they did a year ago,” Peschong said at the June 18 meeting. “I have a problem with biological males … participating in women’s spaces and that includes women’s sports.”
In 2023, the Board of Supervisors voted in a similar fashion, approving the Pride Month resolution in a 3-2 vote with Peschong and Arnold dissenting.
Criticism flooded supervisors’ chambers on July 9 and prior to the meeting, with some community members asking them not to approve the resolution. The actions are similar to opposition that broke out in Arroyo Grande and Atascadero city halls this year when those city councils contemplated raising a Pride flag and proclaiming June as Pride Month, respectively.
Nipomo resident Terri Stricklin wrote to the Board of Supervisors on July 8.
“I have gay relatives and friends that I love and respect,” her letter said. “I am opposed because highlighting and honoring people’s sexual preference is not something government employees (you!) and government agencies should be doing. It’s as silly as if you wanted to have a ‘Heterosexual Month.'”
County resident Karen Aguilar claimed at the July 9 meeting that the “plus” sign in LGBTQ-plus stood for “man-boy love.” The plus sign represents all other identities not included in the acronym.
Gaea Powell, an Arroyo Grande resident and former Arroyo Grande mayoral candidate, showed her opposition to the resolution by displaying a lengthy presentation during the public comment period. It included clips of a company called Tenet Media’s coverage of San Francisco Pride. Tenet Media reporter Tayler Hansen approached naked people celebrating Pride and asked them how they felt about being nude in public spaces and around kids.
Several people gasped and winced in the supervisors’ chambers when Powell showed the clips.
One woman stood up and said, “I’m begging you to stop this. I don’t want to watch this.”
“Close your eyes!” responded another.
Powell went on to show images of LGBTQ-plus books for children followed by a slide that contained illustrations of graphic sexual positions. Supervisor Paulding interrupted the presentation and told County Counsel Neal that the images were pornographic. He said he was concerned about kids seeing these slides if their parents tuned in to watch the meeting.
Neal told New Times that while many people took offense with Powell’s video presentation, there are First Amendment protections around this kind of speech.
“As long as the speech does not result in an actual disruption or constitute ‘obscenity,’ which the U.S. Supreme Court has narrowly defined, speech like this can still be considered protected speech,” she said. “We are reviewing the board’s Rules of Procedure and researching what regulations or procedures the county can impose that limit the reach of offensive speech like this and are consistent with the First Amendment.”
Some members of the public protested Paulding’s request to stop showing those images.
“Those are in our schools!” one man shouted at him. “Maybe you should remove them there first and then here.”
Second District Supervisor Bruce Gibson called Powell’s presentation a “shock” tactic, while 3rd District Supervisor Dawn Ortiz-Legg said such videos are exactly why the resolution must be adopted, in order to provide a safe and welcoming space for marginalized groups like the LGBTQ-plus community. Δ
This article appears in Jul 11-21, 2024.
The County needs to implement new policy regarding visual presentations at meetings as soon as possible, ideally before next week’s BoS meeting on the 16th. It is horrible to think that a Hollywood reject, quack doctor, failed mayoral candidate, and homophobe like Gaea Powell can so explicitly break the rules of public comment with zero intervention by Chairperson Arnold. Gaea Powell, an individual who believes she can identify cancer using a thermal camera, circumvented the rules for public comment by having a new person sit next to her every 3 minutes and claim it was that person’s turn for comment, even though Gaea was in control of the images on screen. This is an obvious violation of procedure and Chairperson Arnold should have shut it down immediately. Gaea Powell, who claims to be a volunteer for the Arroyo Grande Village Improvement District despite paying herself $15,000 from its funds in 2020, broke the rules of public comment by being completely off-topic and using the time to promote hatred and disrupt the meeting. This again was allowed and later encouraged by Chairperson Arnold. Gaea Powell, a failed mayoral candidate in Arroyo Grande who gained only 25% of the vote, is a public nuisance and should not be allowed back into the BoS chambers as she is consistently there to disrupt the meeting due to some repressed anger issues. Chairperson Arnold and her staff need to re-evaluate her effectiveness in maintaining order in the Board chambers and enforcing the simple rules of public comment.
There are only two flags that should be flown from government property: the American flag and the California state flag. Any flag that is not either of those flags should not be flown. If the City implemented that as an official policy, there would be less controversy and conflict at the BoS meetings.
How is it the BOS fails to condemn Hamas but support Gay Pride. Weird.
DFPR, would that California flag be the one that represents the state whose constitution still to this day rejects same sex marriage? The flag of the state where just 16 years ago, a majority of voters were in favor of outlawing same sex marriage? The flags of our governments are not nearly as uniting as you homophobes would like to imagine they are.