The Moorestown Better Together Advisory Committee’s fifth annual Pride flag raising featured remarks from local leaders and performances by the Moorestown Theater Company at town hall on June 3.
“We focus on what we can do to bring people together,” said Mayor Quinton Law, who acknowledged people in the community doing good work. “Let’s not replace community organizations, let’s uplift organizations. When we come together, we are truly better.
“As we stand here in 2026 in Moorestown, I think we’ve come a long way.”
The purpose of the committee is to advise council and help better protect and celebrate diversity; equity; and inclusion for all of Moorestown’s residents; businesses; and visitors, explained committee chair Lisette Gonzalez.
Six years ago, the committee initiated a survey to see how residents view the township as a welcoming, inclusive community. Those results are available on the township website, and this year, the committee initiated a second survey. The first one enabled the committee to host events such as the Pride flag raising.
“Five years, we have been raising a flag for Pride,” Gonzalez explained. “They heard you. They heard us. That’s why we are here today (at the flag raising). Thank you, Moorestown Township; thank you for listening, for hearing us and for seeing us.”
The committee’s current survey is available online at tinyurl.com/mtownsurvey. Its results will provide a baseline for how things changed in the past six years, Gonzalez added. But to do that, she said, the committee needs the help of residents willing to share their thoughts and opinions. To close her remarks at the flag raising, Gonzalez left the audience with a wish.
“When I say, ‘What are we?’ I would like you to say, ‘Better together.’ We are better together.”
Among the event’s speakers was Hime Thomas of Garden State Equality, the largest LGBTQ-plus advocacy organization in the state. Thomas works with the group’s youth, and they continuously inspire joy and laughter.
“Today, I join you in your flag raising,” Thomas noted, “because Pride Month is a reminder to find joy in your journey, to lead with love and light and to commune with community. We are all facing new challenges, changes and choices, but together we will keep on marching on.”
The Pride flag ceremony celebrates Moorestown as a community, according to committee vice chair Richard Hinchman. He initially wanted to share in his remarks what the flag’s colors symbolize, but lately, something else has been burning inside him that he’s seen happen all around.
“ … The reality is, God creates males, God creates females, God creates Intersex people (those who don’t fit the binary male or female model) …” Hinchman observed. “And we are being fed a whole bunch of cultural lies to tell us that we are not real. They want to erase us and they want to tell us their version of God.
“The reality,” he added, “is that the God I’ve experienced is a God of love, and it took me a very long time to discover that … It took me a long time to reach down and discover the very essence that the eternal power of the universe is a power of love.”
Also at the flag raising were members of the township’s new Moorestown Queer Alliance. A flag-raising ceremony is much more than raising a simple piece of fabric, believes alliance member Kimmie Smith. For many – especially youth and adults in the LGBTQIA-plus community – it represents something much bigger, such as visibility and belonging.
It also sends a clear message that all are welcomed and valued in their community and that they are not alone, according to Smith.
“Pride Month is a celebration of how far we’ve come, but it’s also a reminder of the work that remains,” Smith emphasized. “It is an opportunity to recognize the courage of those who have come before us, who fought for the rights to live openly and authentically and to honor those who continue that work today.
” … I know first hand how powerful it is when a community chooses acceptance over judgement and belonging over exclusion … Today, as this flag rises, let us stand as a symbol of Moorestown’s commitment to kindness, inclusion and respect.
“Let it remind every person here who sees (the flag) that they belong and that their story matters.”
Moorestown’s Pride flag-raising ceremony represents visibility and belonging for youth and adults in the LGBTQIA-plus community.
