It’s a message worth sending, a symbol worth having.
Check out Page 1 of this very paper and you’ll see a story on Qualicum Beach council asking staffers to look into options and costs of painting a rainbow crosswalk in the town.
Good for them.
Newcomer Coun. Robert Filmer brought the motion, responding to students who had approached him during his campaign, asking that the pride symbol have a place in town.
“I had students approach me requesting that we have the symbol in the Town of Qualicum Beach for the acceptance of the LGBTQ community,” said Filmer.
The councillor also pointed out the crosswalk is also an anti-bullying and harassment symbol.
“It’s a symbol that accepts everyone for who you are no matter what.”
Hard to find a problem with that.
The rainbow-coloured crosswalks have popped up across the province and, not surprisingly, something as utterly benign as a few coloured lines across a crosswalk has sparked concerns.
We’ve heard them all.
Road safety (they are not rainbow spotlights shooting into the sky with unicorns circling overhead playing shiny tubas).
If anyone has trouble figuring out these as crosswalks, any defence of stupidity isn’t likely to resonate.
Others argued the crosswalks shouldn’t be message boards, or set a precedent.
They should set a precedent. One that dictates small but meaningful gestures like this will become second nature.
It’s hardly going to open some sort of Pandora’s Box of message-sending and even if it did, it’s a message worth sending.
The only real question should be, why not rainbow crosswalks?
Like it or not, LGBTQ is a reality in our world.
Filmer noted: “On Vancouver Island, we are one of the only communities that do not have this symbol in their town.”
We want and need a society that accepts everyone for who they are.
Tolerance is the order of the day.
“In Parksville, they have theirs right in front of Ballenas Secondary School, and if we’re going to start thinking about location, I think that’s where the first mindset would have to go, is in front of Kwalikum Secondary.”
Great idea. Why not?
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