John Breunig (opinion): Darien's tone deaf decision in wake of Colorado Springs shooting at LGBTQ nightclub

When DEI matters come to the Darien Board of Selectmen in the future, they should just leave the decisions up to teenagers.

The kids get it. They instinctively see diversity, equity and inclusion as aspirational, not an affront. It is a kinder generation.  

The most recent error should have been a gimme for Darien's elders. Push back against that stubbornly exclusive reputation by permitting flags of all colors to be flown in front of Town Hall and other town property.

This was an intentional walk, but they swung through all the pitches.

The loudest outcry has been from the LGBTQ+ community, which will not be able to display Pride flags on town property. Town leaders might counter that they won’t permit flags from other groups either, such as Veterans of Foreign Wars.

That just makes it worse.

During the debate, Darien Selectman Jon Zagrodzky declared that it would be “trivial and almost insulting” for the board to instead choose the other option, which would have empowered them to rule on flag requests.

How’s this for an insult? The Town of Darien dismissed pleas from Darien Pride members Monday, which happened to be two days after a gunman killed five people in a LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs. Board members could have tabled the discussion again, as they did after debating it in August, but opted instead to seal the deal on a sleepy holiday week.

This isn’t just tone deaf to the LGBTQ+ community, but to the shameful reputation Darien has pretty much had since it was incorporated 202 years ago.

That notoriety was burnished by Darien’s long-held status as a “sundown town” where minorities were not permitted after dark.

Back in the 1920s, Stamford residents found messages in their mailboxes inviting them to a Ku Klux Klan meeting in red ink. “Kindly attend or suffer the consequences,” the message read, a rare union of patrician manners and thuggish threat.

Stamford residents notified the postmaster, who contacted police. It didn’t require much detective work. They went straightaway to the home of Darien resident Harry Lutterman, the “King Kleagle of Connecticut and Rhode Island” for the KKK (kleagle was Klan code for “recruiter”). He responded that it was a conspiracy to frame the KKK and assured police that Klan members were on the case. The law eventually caught up with Lutterman for operating an illegal still during Prohibition.

By 1947, Darien’s reputation was so entrenched that author Laura Z. Hobson used it as the setting of her novel about antisemitism, “Gentleman’s Agreement” (“New Canaan's even stricter about Jews than Darien,'' one character proclaimed, which will never be a defense).

The film version of the book starring Gregory Peck began filming immediately in the town. The Stamford Advocate reported Peck carrying around a baseball and tossing curveballs to director Elia Kazan at the train station. The town threw back its own screwball. Though the Oscar winner for best picture was screened at Stamford’s State cinema, Darien’s theater opted instead for “The Egg and I” about newlyweds running a chicken farm.

And so, “Darien” became a sort of unctuous shorthand. Waterbury native Rosalind Russell as “Auntie Mame” cracked wise on celluloid in 1958 about “an Aryan from Darien.” Fact was even bleaker than fiction. In the same era, there was a single Black athlete, Scipio Tucker, on the rosters of all Darien High School teams.

If all that seems so long ago and far away, consider this. The Black population of Darien in the 2020 Census was about 1 percent (yes, 2020, not 1920). Too many town residents still read the words “affordable housing” as a declaration of Northern aggression. Earlier this year, the Darien Board of Education voted against letting 16 children from Norwalk attend kindergarten in town schools, citing the cost.

That last one drew blowback from state Senators Bob Duff and Patricia Billie Miller, who each represent portions of Darien, as it dovetailed with the town’s $103 million bid to buy a private island. 

Again, that’s not a movie plot. The vision for the island includes a croquet court. You just can’t make up Darien.  

As a result of redistricting, state Rep. Matt Blumenthal will lose his Darien constituents in a few weeks. In the wake of Monday’s vote, he sounded thunderstruck by its timing after the Colorado Springs shooting.

“I don’t think (the flag ban) would ever be the right thing to do, but it sends a terrible signal right now,” Blumenthal told me. “It seems very indifferent to the fear and insecurity and pain the LGBTQ community goes through generally, but particularly at this time.”

And while Darien loses Blumenthal, it gains a third state senator. A town with fewer than 22,000 residents still tilting predominantly to the right will have three Democratic senators. Before the flag vote, Duff tweeted that he was flying a Pride flag at his home in a show of solidarity after the shooting.  

The newest member of the delegation will be Ceci Maher, who recently served as interim director of Sandy Hook Promise after a long tenure as executive director of Person-to-Person, which was based in Darien.

Maher pointed out why the flag decision is so damaging. Darien held its first Pride rally in June, drawing more than 600 supporters who rose above some petty homophobic acts in the town (lawn signs stolen, dunderheaded videos).

It was a demonstration that Darien can be better than its reputation.

“There was so much excitement (at the event). To think that they would choose to turn away …”

Maher was fighting a post-election cold. But I could tell that wasn’t the reason for her deep sigh. Then she summoned precisely the right words: “Darien took a step forward and now is taking a step back.”

The vote to pass the policy followed party lines, and Republicans maintain the majority on the five-member board. During the spirited debate, First Selectman Monica McNally said, “I personally think that the Darien flag, the Connecticut flag and the American flag cover everybody in our community. Every single person is represented underneath those rights.”

Yes, that should be true. Except it’s not. In Darien, those flags seem less like symbols of inclusion and more like welcome mats that read “Go Away.”

If this were a movie, the stirring final scene would show Darien residents taking a stand by flying Pride flags from their front porches. But that would take an effort, just as it would take time for the Board of Selectmen to consider flag requests.

And Darien still isn’t willing to do the work to clear its name.    

John Breunig is editorial page editor of the Stamford Advocate and Greenwich Time. jbreunig@scni.com; twitter.com/johnbreunig.