Chuck Schumer drafts bill to protect Pride flags at national park sites like Stonewall memorial

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has drafted a bill to authorize the display of Pride flags at national park sites, including Stonewall National Monument.

Schumer announced plans to codify protections for the Rainbow Pride Flag during a press event at the monument on Sunday. Schumer is drafting the legislation alongside Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Rep. Dan Goldman, all of them Democrats from New York.

The move comes after President Donald Trump prohibited the flag’s display on certain federal properties, and its subsequent removal from Stonewall — a site where riots against police raids in 1969 helped forge the gay rights movement. Local leaders raised a new Pride flag at the monument last week in spite of Trump’s federal directive.

Schumer’s bill has not yet been introduced into Congress. But the bill would let national park officials display the Pride flag, while also condemning the flag’s removal from Stonewall and urging its restoration, a spokesperson for Schumer told The Advocate over email.

“The lesson is simple. Rights that are not secured in law can be threatened, and symbols that are not protected can be stripped away,” Schumer said Sunday. The Pride flag “is not a decoration. It's a living symbol of history, of resilience, and the ongoing struggle for justice and equality.”

Related: Hundreds fill the streets near Stonewall as NYC community members reraised Pride flag Trump ordered removed

Goldman, who attended the raising of a replacement Pride flag at Stonewall last week, described its removal as an effort to “spew hate.”

“The Trump administration tried to erase our vibrant LGBTQ+ history by literally tearing down our flag,” Goldman shared on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter. “But rest assured we won’t let them.”

The bill comes amid a string of policy and legal efforts to protect the Pride flag’s display at Stonewall and other sites of LGBTQ+ history.

Last week, the New York City Council passed a resolution opposing the Pride flag’s removal from Stonewall, and members of the chamber were present to help raise a new flag. Meanwhile, two lawsuits filed in federal court this week seek to prevent the federal government from removing the flag again.

In light of the flag's removal, many LGBTQ+ rights groups and New York City activists say they have found renewed focus for protests, mutual aid, grassroots organizing and voting campaigns.

Related: For New Yorkers, Stonewall’s new Pride flag is only step one

Several expressed support for Schumer’s bill, plus hope that it could protect LGBTQ history sites from further federal intervention.

“The Pride flag represents generations of Americans who fought to be seen, heard, and protected under our nation’s promise of liberty,” said Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, in remarks shared with The Advocate through a media representative. “This is not about politics or identities. It’s about ensuring our history fully reflects who we are as a country.”

“We’re still here. We’re still queer. And we’re not going anywhere,” said Jay Kuo, chair-elect of the Human Rights Campaign, during Sunday’s gathering. “So fly your Pride flags higher than ever.”

Tyler Hack, executive director of the Christopher Street Project — a political action committee centered around trans rights — said the Trump administration’s removal of the Pride flag was “destructive,” but also emblematic of the wider struggle to protect LGBTQ rights, especially trans rights.

“This fight is bigger than a flag. This fight is about youth not being able to get their gender-affirming care. It feels like every day we hear of a new clinic that stops providing life-saving health care to trans youth,” Hack told The Advocate. “We can't lose sight that the core of our fight right now is about liberating trans people from all out attacks on our health care and on our ways of life.”

This article was written as part of the Future of Queer Media fellowship program at The Advocate, which is underwritten by a generous gift from Morrison Media Group. The program helps support the next generation of LGBTQ+ journalists.