I work at a 3rd-6th public school in MA. I wore this hat to celebrate Pride month and last week of school. I am known for my 25 days of holiday hats I wear around the winter holidays. I do mostly Santa hats but also make sure to include secular hats/Hanuikka hats. No one has a problem with it and the kids LOVE it because the hats get progressively more outrageous the closer it gets to break.
So yesterday I get in the door and My Lead says "Do you have to wear that hat?" I replied "What? Its a rainbow hat for pride month?" And shrugged. Then my most vocal and conservative coworker came in and told me that "my hat is inappropriate". I replied that d"iversity, tolerance, and inclusion is ALWAYS appropriate". She came back with " if it was just a rainbow hat but with the Pride sticker on there its not ok. You want tolerance and repect but you aren't respected the other side. You know I dont believe in that and in front of the kids, its bad enough in front of us knowing we don't believe in that." So I asked her if she wanted to bring it to HR. She said no and i offered to turn my hat around. Then My called HR who told her that my hat is fine. Lol.
The kicker is the coworker was wearing a Black Flag hat!
edit Black American Flag hat worn by conservatives in the US
For centuries the treatment gays got was 'stay hidden or else'. No respect in that from me.
Citation and location needed? I'm a supporter of LGBTQ+ rights, but I don't think that sentence is accurate.
Edit: Guys... there have been civilizations in which homosexuality was okay. I'm not going to say was pervasive, but it definitely was a thing. If you're talking about Western values, then that's a different thing.
They are talking about anti-sodomy laws like the Buggery act of 1533 variations of which persisted specifically in American law in some states up until 2003 that criminalized consentual sexual relations between same sex partners (though in practice mostly for men). For a very long time it was a hanging offence through it went through a lot of different eras the punishment changed. Some of the early of medical horomones was high doses of estrogen to "chemically castrate" men who were caught and proven to have had same sex sexual relations.
So yes. Stay in the closet "or else" is accurate.
Some of the first European anti buggery law originated in the same 50 year period (1250-1300) that the Church started cracking down on it's previously fairly lax veiw of abortion stemming from multiple debated theories of when "ensoulment" happened. The reason for this was the emergence of the largest wave of the Black Death that caused fears of the collapse of society so it was "make babies (the Christian approved way) or else". Buggery laws, midwifery suppression and the castigation of "non fruitful" same sex relationships were basically just used to force the issue.