The city of Rock Springs officially declared this week that June is “pride month” in the southwest Wyoming city.
It’s done so for years, but this year’s proclamation has generated a surge of backlash, as shown through 543 comments on the city's Facebook post and 43 shares as of Tuesday afternoon.
That’s far less scrutiny than the three comments and five shares a similar post got in 2024.
Mayor Max Mickelson told Cowboy State Daily this year’s heated election cycle — not just municipal, but at all levels — is driving public vitriol.
“There’s just a lot of strong feelings,” said Mickelson in a Tuesday phone interview. “And people are expressing those which again, absolutely (that’s their) protected First Amendment right. But it is the whole purpose of a city to create an environment where people can thrive. That’s it.”
The majority of Rock Springs City Council members who spoke to Cowboy State Daily said the proclamation is about honoring diverse groups within Rock Springs, and the backlash is overblown.
Rick Milonas, a city councilman who is running against Mickelson and another candidate for the mayor’s seat, said he has nothing against gay people, but that city government shouldn’t be advancing any sexual agenda.
The city government’s Monday Facebook post proclaiming June as pride month shows Mickelson standing in his suit along with City Councilwoman Jeannie Demas, and a half dozen other people, most holding rainbow pride flags.
The photo backdrop features a banner above the city logo which reads, in gothic calligraphy, “In God We Trust.”
Milonas cast that as an irony.
“He made the whole month gay pride month and boy oh boy, people are upset,” said Milonas in his own Tuesday interview. “Then he took that picture underneath ‘In God We Trust.’”
No City Money
The city’s post advertises four events: a pride game night at Pin Up Coffee, “A Magical Night with Michael Carducci” at the city’s Broadway Theater, a Pride Celebration at Bunning Park, and a PrideFest Pub Crawl at Square State Brewing.
Mickelson said the city isn’t giving money for any of these events.
“Yeah, in terms of city resources — other than the paper (the proclamation) was printed on — zero,” he said.
The city is allowing its theater and park to be used for the events, he added. The First Amendment calls for government forums like those not to censor speakers within them based on viewpoint alone.
“My practice as the mayor has been for any local, state, or nationally-recognized event, if a resident asks for a proclamation, then we do one,” said Mickelson, adding that Rock Springs has proclaimed June as pride month every year he’s been mayor.
“I’m not going to gate-keep and pick and choose which events matter to the residents,” he said. "That would be inappropriate.”
He said the photograph was shot Friday. The city used to do public occasion proclamations within City Council meetings, he said, but now it issues those proclamations during scheduled times instead.
But the meetings have “become very long and not focused on business,” said Mickelson.
City Logo
Milonas said this ties back to his fears from around two years ago, that a the city’s Urban Renewal Agency (URA) manager tried to redesign official government messaging to tout the LGBTQ agenda.
Milonas said a city employee was involved in designing the new, multicolored city logo in an effort to “(promote) his gay agenda.”
Mickelson called that claim false and said he’s growing frustrated with Milonas’ rhetoric.
Conflict in the city government has been ongoing for months at least.
Former state Rep. Chad Banks, who now serves as the URA manager, filed an ethics complaint against Milonas earlier this year over Milonas’ claims that Banks redesigned the city logo to advance a “gay agenda.”
“This moves beyond policy disagreement and into personal targeting,” Banks wrote in the complaint, according to SweetwaterNOW.
Banks’ complaint was upheld.
“They found me guilty as charged. So basically, they took away my freedom of speech,” said Milonas.
In turn, Milonas filed a complaint against the mayor claiming the latter “weaponized the ethics process,” which the council threw out for lack of evidence.
Milonas contends he wasn’t given the chance to defend his allegations.
Mickelson said the complaint was simply unfounded.
“It’s very difficult to produce evidence of something that did not happen,” said Mickelson about the complaint against him.
Mickelson said he formed a committee to look at the city logo. The city hired a marketing consultant but didn’t use his work. And the committee chose the new colors — blue, yellow and green — “because we wanted to update the old logo.”
The mayor said Banks had no part in choosing the colors.
“I am beyond frustrated that an elected official would continually, despite being shown factual evidence, misrepresent to the voters the process that was followed for his own personal reasons,” said Mickelson. “It is reckless, it is irresponsible and it is frankly a dereliction of what we all took an oath to uphold.”
About Pride Month
Pride month, widely observed under the Democratic administration of former President Joe Biden, celebrates people of alternate sexual orientations, as well as transgender and “questioning” people.
The administration of President Donald Trump, who has touted more socially conservative approaches, declared last June that the president didn’t plan to declare June as pride month.
“But I can tell you,” said Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt at the time, “this president is very proud to be a president for all Americans, regardless of race, religion, or creed.”
Other City Council Members
Facebook commenters on the city’s proclamation post ventured expressions of delight and approval, as well as consternation and frustration.
Other city council members, besides Milonas, who returned Cowboy State Daily’s calls on Tuesday cast the social media outrage as overblown.
“Any group can come and proclaim a day or month or week,” said Councilman Rob Zotti. “We do it all the time for nonprofits, for cancer awareness, for domestic violence. You name it.”
Regarding whether celebrating certain sexual preferences is the role of government, Zotti said, “I’m kind of at a loss, because it’s just a recognition of people … it’s just a matter of people wanting to be recognized and affirmed as people. And (recognizing) they have the same rights as everybody else.”
Councilman David Thompson said the city tries to include everyone and recognize numerous different awareness drives, “whether we agree with them or not.”
Thompson said that on a volunteer basis, he plans on helping with security for a pride event in the park.
“There might be some people overreacting,” said Thompson.
Councilman Dan Pedri said that, “we have a lot of people within our community. We’re always recognizing different groups, different people. I don’t personally have a problem with it.”
He called some of the negative comments “disheartening” and harmful to their targets.
He also said that some of the people making derogatory comments on social media are silent on the issue when out in public.
“So, a lot of people can be pretty bold and say the things that they feel they should say — at a distance,” said Pedri.
Cowboy State Daily left voicemails for all city council members. The others did not comment by publication.
The outlet also tried, without success, to reach and interview some of the boldest commenters under the Facebook post.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
