How the National Park Service bungled Pride Month

By Robin Bravender, Rob Hotakainen | 06/27/2024 01:43 PM EDT

The National Park Service’s decision to bar employees from wearing their uniforms at Pride events sparked a firestorm.

Glacier National Park rangers and staff of the Glacier National Park Conservancy at the 2023 Pride Parade in Missoula, Montana.

Glacier National Park rangers and staff of the Glacier National Park Conservancy at the 2023 Pride Parade in Missoula, Montana. Glacier National Park/Flickr

The Biden administration celebrated June’s Pride Month with rainbow flags and a gathering on the South Lawn.

But its National Park Service spent the month trying to tamp down an employee and public relations debacle of its own making.

Weeks before the festivities began, park service leaders issued an edict that took many of their employees by surprise: They were forbidden to wear their uniforms to public events that could be construed as the agency supporting a particular issue, position or political party. And that, they said, included Pride parades.

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The move — which became public when POLITICO’s E&E News first reported it in May — went against years of park service practice allowing employees to wear uniforms at Pride events, including during the Trump administration.

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