Are the colorful lights at OS City Hall for LGBTQ Pride Month? Locals are confused.

Noelle Nolan-Rider and her wife first noticed the lights at City Hall in downtown Ocean Springs last weekend.

The lights were rainbow, sort of, and it was June, recognized around the country as LGBTQ Pride Month. But some of the colors of the most widely used Pride flag were missing — there was no orange or yellow — and they were in the wrong order.

Was this a display of support for Pride? Nolan-Rider, who had driven by City Hall to see if the state flag was still flying, wasn’t sure.

Mayor Shea Dobson says it was.

He told the Sun-Herald in an interview that he personally decided to put up the lights at City Hall for the first time this year to recognize Pride.

Dobson’s grandfather, Roland Dobson, founded one of New Orleans’ early gay Mardi Gras krewes in 1969.

“I’ve always supported the gay community,” Dobson said. “To me it’s a no-brainer.”

The state flag still flies in OS

But some Ocean Springs residents say the gesture rings hollow. The lights went on with no fanfare or announcement. They cast a range of colors on the facade of City Hall, above which flies the Mississippi state flag. Dobson put the flag up when he was elected in 2017, took it down after public outcry, and replaced it later that year after the Board of Aldermen passed a resolution requiring it to be flown not only at City Hall, but at all city buildings with a flagpole.

As Gulfport and Bay St. Louis have taken down the 1894 state flag in response to the national outcry after the killing of George Floyd and other Black men at the hands of police, Dobson said he has no plans to revisit the flag issue. He doesn’t see his stance as inconsistent with his attitude towards LGBTQ rights.

“The only goal and logic about putting up the flag is that I love this state, which hasn’t changed,” he said.

In the past, the Ocean Springs LGBTQ community has celebrated pride through its own events, without city sponsorship. Last year’s Ocean Springs Pride Bike Ride ended at City Hall, where bikers sprayed color powder in the hues of the stripes on the pride flag. The event was canceled this year due to the pandemic.

In June 2019, Diana Schmied attended a Board of Aldermen meeting and stood up during the public comment period to read a statement of support for the Ocean Springs LGBTQ community. The mayor and aldermen were positive and receptive, she said. But the city didn’t issue a proclamation or official recognition of Pride Month.

“I said something about, ‘I hope in coming years the city will do something to officially recognize LGBTQ contributions to the community and Gay Pride Month,’” Schmied recalled.

What about the queer community?

Dobson said the city hadn’t considered issuing a proclamation for Pride Month this year, either.

“I think with everything going on in the news and the nation, I guess unfortunately it just didn’t get brought up as much as it should have,” Dodson said.

Schmied’s husband works at City Hall and the couple walks by the building several evenings a week. They didn’t know what the lights were for.

“I know people are saying it looks like gay pride lights, but I have no idea if that’s what they meant to do,” she said.

Dobson said there was “no rhyme or reason” to the city’s putting up the lights without putting out a statement or announcement at the same time. He added that he would be happy to rearrange the lights and add colors to match the Pride Flag.

As for Nolan-Rider, she never did figure out whether the lights were intended to support Pride.

“It would have been nice to inform the queer community that that was your intention,” she said.

This story was originally published June 20, 2020 at 7:00 AM.