Hey, this is Buck Sexton and you're listening to the Tudor Dixon podcast part of the Clay Travers and Buck Sexton podcast network.

Welcome to the Tudor Dixon podcast. I'm Tudor Dixon and I'm so glad you're tuning in today. We have a special guest. You've probably heard in the news a lot of talk about

Hamtramic Michigan. Maybe a city that you hadn't heard a lot about before and definitely an interesting name, but you're hearing that because

the mayor of Hamtramic has made a decision that the flag posts or the flag posts are going to have American flags, POW flags, but issues flags are not going to be up there.

So I want to bring him in, Mayor Amir Gala, but thank you so much for joining me today.

Thank you for having me.

Absolutely. So this is really, I mean, I know you've gotten a lot of flack. This has been in the news. A lot of folks are talking about this and they've kind of labeled this as an anti LGBTQ issue, but it's really not that and I would say that I want you to kind of set it straight that this is this is just you are talking about public buildings in the city and being respectful of everyone and making sure that the public buildings are focused on really patriotic flags.

Or POW flags things like that correct.

That's true. So first, thank you for giving me the opportunity to be on this show and to talk about this issue and other issues of Hamtramic and to educate people about Hamtramic.

We had actually a resolution since 2013 resolution one would do that give permission to the human relation commission to put the international flags on the mainstream to represent the international character of the city.

So recently there were some attempts to put some groups flags among those international flags and that's where the problem started.

So the city thought that we just need to be a neutral and to represent everyone equally because all these groups in the city belongs there are minorities and they need support in one way or the other.

And some of them are subject to discrimination in one way or the other as well. So I need to treat people equally. Everyone is equally important to me.

And therefore we pass the resolution to confirm the neutrality of the city to what its residents we want to be fair to everyone. No discrimination but at the same time no preferential treatment to everyone.

So just to cover decision that to allow any groups flags and just to allow the American flag state and city and personal force flag.

That's I think it's fair enough for everyone and that's only in public spaces and city properties.

But I think people don't understand this is city property. These are not people's local businesses. You're not dictating what people can do and it is not to discriminate it is actually to make sure that no one is discriminated against and no one feels uncomfortable.

True and your private properties you can do whatever you want the city actually you know there's any kind of vandalism to stuff in private properties we stand for firm against this and I denounce any kind of vandalism vandalism against private properties and I was clear on and I'm strict and I call people to respect that.

But again I expect people to respect the city or theirs and resolutions and to buy to that but the case it doesn't look like they will do some people with respect.

Let's talk a little bit about the city because you are a new mayor for ham tram and you are a Muslim mayor in a community that has become increasingly Muslim now recently there's been a lot of talk about the Muslim community on national television because people have said oh Republicans are trying to like horn in on the Democrats territory that the Muslims belong to Democrats and it was interesting from my perspective because running for office.

I had a lot of people who said to me you know you're a Christian American and that's you're not going to be able to win over the Muslim community and so don't even go there so I'm like giving you the background on when you are running for statewide office as a Republican that really was true and then as the campaign went on.

We started to connect with our friends in the Muslim community and they were like look we believe in policies I mean we're obviously putting our faith aside but it's our conservative values that we agree on and I actually got to come in and meet with some of the Muslim leaders in Michigan and it's a large community we have 350,000 Muslims in the state of Michigan.

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