Va. Lawmaker Wants Pride Flag Removed

Virginia delegate Robert Marshall has written a letter to the president of the Richmond Federal Reserve Bank urging that a rainbow flag being flown for Gay Pride Month be removed.

The Washington Postreports on the letter that Marshall wrote to Jeffrey Lacker, president of the Richmond Federal Reserve. Prism, the bank's LGBT group, requested that the flag be flown, and a Federal Reserve spokesman said the flag reflects the bank's commitment to diversity, adding that some critics mistakenly think the bank is a government entity.

However, according to the Post, Marshall, among the most conservative members of the Virginia General Assembly, said that homosexuality "adds significantly to illness, increases health costs, promotes venereal diseases, and worsens the population imbalance relating to the number of workers supporting the beneficiaries of America's Social Security and Medicare programs."

He wrote, "I do not believe that a celebration of 'gay pride' has anything to do with the mission of the Federal Reserve under the Federal Reserve Act passed by Congress. This is a celebration of a behavior that is still a class six felony in Virginia. How can the American people trust the judgement of the Federal Reserve as an institution when its spokesperson celebrates an attack on public morals?"

Delegate Riley E. Ingram also contacted the bank to oppose the flag.