The rainbow flag regularly flies out of Mechelien’s window. Until last Sunday. The cheerful colors apparently became too much for a passerby and in broad daylight the flag was set on fire. “The melted pieces were on my bike,” she tells NH Nieuws. She does not let herself be known and tomorrow she will hang a new, even more inclusive, flag.
Mechelien’s husband brings in the laundry on Sunday when he suddenly sees that there is something wrong with the flag. “Look, that entire flag has melted,” he says to Mechelien. They are very shocked. “It must have happened at a time when we were not around for a while. During the day, I find that very cheeky. The front door was probably even open.”
Mechelien is not deterred. “You can set it on fire, but I’ll just hang another one.” She already has the new flag at home, but today the Dutch flag is hanging, because of Liberation Day.
diversity
Mechelien has hung the flag to increase the visibility of the LGBTIQ+ community in the village. She has previously received positive reactions to the flag. “A friend’s child is transgender and he is very happy that it is hanging there,” says 43-year-old Ouderkerkse. “Everything can seem very diverse, but the diversity in our village is hard to find,” she says disgruntled now that the flag has been destroyed.
She also filed a complaint. “I don’t think it’s just something. It is a statement to take a lighter and melt an LGBTIQ + flag. If it is out of wantonness, you are also a loser.” Things are often stolen from front yards in the area, but Mechelien does this a lot more. “It’s not the garden gnome that was stolen from the garden.”
Mayor Joyce Langenacker finds it painful that this happened just now, around Liberation Day. “We are proud in the Netherlands that we are free to go where we want, that we are free to be ourselves. The incident once again makes it clear in a harsh way that that freedom is not self-evident.” She continues to fight for that freedom.
Van Mechelien likes Ouderkerk to be a lot more tolerant. “Silence sometimes screams louder than other things. Not saying anything, not talking about it.” She will also continue to work for the LGBTIQ+ community. “I am propagating this from within myself, because I see in my environment that people need it.”