The City Council of Hamtramck, a small town in Michigan that is governed entirely by Muslims, passed a law this week banning the display of LGBT flags.
In 2015, Hamtramck became the first city in North America to be governed exclusively by Muslims. The multicultural population welcomed the political change, but now, in the face of the measure, some residents feel “betrayed”, writes “The Guardian”.
After the measure was unanimously approved, Muslim residents who watched the vote in the city council applauded and quickly filled social media with messages like this one: “A city without potters.”
During the vote, counselor Mohamed Hassan, in the face of the cries of LGBT rights activists, said: “I work for the people, for what the majority of people want.”
The current mayor, Amer Ghaleb, who is of Yemeni origin, told the Guardian that there was an “overreaction to the situation and some people are not ready to accept the fact that they have lost.” The mayor of Hamtramck is accusing the LGBTQ+ community of “imposing its agenda on” more conservative residents.
In the opinion of her predecessor, Karen Majewski, an American of Polish descent, there is a “sense of betrayal” among the more liberal population.
The city’s population consists of 28,000 people, of whom about 30% to 38% are of Yemeni descent and 24% are of Asian descent, mostly from Bangladesh.
Before these immigrants became the cultural majority, Hamtramck was ruled for nearly a century by Ukrainian and Polish Catholics. The coexistence of different communities has always been peaceful, at least until now.
The city council, which has always reflected the city’s multiculturalism, currently consists of Muslim men only.
For Gracie Cadieux, a resident with the anti-transgender group, this represents “an erasure of the gay community and an attempt to put LGBT people back in the closet.”
