TACOMA — Pierce County Council member Amy Cruver told the public Tuesday she will not be sitting in the council chambers while a Pride flag hangs there because it distracts her from her official duties.
Cruver, a Republican representing District 3 since 2020, said she will attend meetings via video call in her office for the entirety of July, which is Pierce County Pride month. She told The News Tribune on Wednesday a rainbow flag sits in her line of sight in council chambers and is distracting to her work because it makes her think of uncomfortable things like gay pornography, drag shows and gender-affirming surgeries.
“When a human being displays themselves in ways that are uncomfortable, I’m uncomfortable, and it makes my mind think of other things,” Cruver told The News Tribune. “And then I’m distracted from being able to do the work I need to do and focus on what I’m trying to focus on. There’s enough distractions anyway, let alone having something specific like that that has been very vocal in the world.”
This July was the first time a Pride flag has been flown in the Pierce County Council chambers. Republicans, including Executive Bruce Dammier, have been vocal about not wanting the Pride flag to be flown on or in public buildings in the past.
Next Tuesday will be the fourth year in a row a proclamation affirming support of the LGBTQ community has been brought to the County Council for approval. The three Republican members of the council have not signed their names to it, Cruver told The News Tribune.
At the end of Tuesday’s council meeting Cruver said she believed drag story hours — children’s reading events hosted by drag queens — have no family value and held up laminated photos to illustrate other topics she deemed indecent. Cruver’s comments painted LGBTQ people as perverted, disturbed and attention-seeking. She mentioned FOX News was also “very interested” in the stance she took with the flag.
After her statement there were several seconds of silence in the council chambers before Pierce County Council chair Ryan Mello reaffirmed support for the LGBTQ community. Mello, a District 4 Democrat who has been on the council since 2021, is the first openly gay person to lead the Pierce County Council and was the first openly gay man to be elected to the Tacoma City Council in 2010.
“I’m quite pleased that this council has decided to raise a symbol of inclusion, love and welcoming for all people in our community,” he said. “I would encourage us to look at the diversity and humanity of the community that we are trying to lift up and not continue to other the community, because those kinds of statements and attacks really is dangerous and has been demonstrated to cause significant harm to folks’ mental health, suicide rates and other very dangerous acts in our community.”
In an interview with The News Tribune on Wednesday, Mello said Cruver’s comments and actions were vile, harmful, inaccurate, distasteful and close-minded.
Mello said “extreme misinformation” like that deeply harms the LGBTQ community, keeps people in the closet and affirms why Pride celebrations are needed.
“Part of me was aghast. Part of me was really sad to hear a colleague be so dishonest and disrespectful and try to mischaracterize the beauty of the LGBTQ community,” Mello said, mentioning there was a woman in the council chambers who was visibly sobbing off-camera Tuesday as Cruver spoke. “Her rhetoric is not only unfounded, it is dangerous.”
In response to a question about what Cruver would tell those in the LGBTQ community who were offended or thought she didn’t support them based on her comments, Cruver told The News Tribune her statement was very specific to how the flag affects her personally.
“If they’re offended that [the flag] bothers me, well, I don’t know what to say. Why can’t it bother me that it’s done, but it bothers them that I think that?” she said. “I know that I’m not alone. I didn’t say anything that wasn’t on other people’s minds as well.”
Cruver is running for re-election in November, and Mello is running for Pierce County Executive.
