You know, the kinds of people who have strong negative feelings towards a rainbow crosswalk are, in my experience, not committed to inclusion. Most normal people are going to not care or not notice. So when a whole town gets a bug up their ass about it, well, I'm going to make some assumptions about the town.

Please read the whole article, not just the headline.

Council, including the mayor, claim to have been against this bylaw and supposedly supported rejecting it.

It seems that they made a tactical error in not allowing it the full three readings in council. Since it was a motion brought forward by the community, refusing to give it the full three readings in council meant that it had to go to plebiscite (a binding referendum) under provincial legislation.

The MAGAs are winning, even here.

These people certainly seem to have interesting priorities.

Between 10 a.m. and 8 p.m. Thursday, 1,306 Westlock residents – or 33.5 per cent of eligible voters – reported to a community hall to vote either yes or no to the following question:

"Do you agree that: only federal, provincial and municipal flags may be flown on flagpoles on Town of Westlock municipal property; all crosswalks in the Town of Westlock must be the standard white striped pattern between two parallel white lines; and the existing rainbow coloured crosswalk in the Town of Westlock be removed."

The yes contingent won by 24 votes: 663 in favour to 639 opposed. Four ballots were rejected during counting, the town said.

...

Voter turnout on Thursday was higher than both the January byelection (1,271) and the 2021 municipal general election (1,221) when Westlock had 370 more eligible voters.

My feeling is that a town that bans pride flags should not have pride flags. Imo it's dangerous to minorities to tell them they're welcome when they are not.

How boring.