Christian lawmaker wants to ban the Pride flag because Americans should live by 18th-century values

In Tennessee, a state representative says parents want their children raised with the values “that were in existence at the time that our country was founded,” as he shepherds a bill to ban the display of Pride flags on state property through the Tennessee legislature.

Republican State Rep. Gino Bulso introduced House Bill 1605 in December.

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Among examples of those values, Bulso did not mention slavery, the absence of women’s suffrage, eradication of the indigenous population or syphilis running rampant through neighborhood bordellos.

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Like the latest Speaker of the U.S. House, Mike Johnson (R-LA), Bulso is a Christian nationalist who believes the Bible is the foundation of civic life and government. He says 18th-century values are the ones Americans should adhere to.

“Certainly, you know, 50 years ago we had a consensus on what marriage is; we don’t have that anymore,” Bulso told WKRN in Nashville. “One hundred years ago, we had a consensus on sexual morality; I don’t think we have that anymore. So the values that I think most parents want their children exposed to are the ones that were in existence at the time that our country was founded.”

And the Pride flag, in Bulso’s estimation, is at odds with that moral code.

“I had some complaints from Williamson County parents and a Williamson County School Board member, in particular, about Pride flags in some of our schools in Williamson County,” Bulso said. “The whole idea is that a school is a place where a child goes to learn, not a place where a child goes to be indoctrinated” in “transgender ideology and other similar issues.”

According to Bulso, the Pride and trans flags represent the 2015 Supreme Court decision legalizing marriage equality and are a misguided interpretation of the 14th Amendment that requires states to recognize same-sex marriage.

“That’s one issue that I think that flag represents. This idea that, somehow, the 14th Amendment has an equal protection clause that extends this protection, which is obviously something I very much disagree with,” he said. “And I think — a lot of parents and I would be included in that group — really think that this transgender ideology is probably the most dangerous one that comes under that Pride flag.”

As written, Bulso’s bill bans any flag except the U.S. and Tennessee state flags from being displayed on government property like municipal buildings, state courts, and schools. That will change, Bulso said, as exceptions are written in that conform to a “very strong consensus”, while still denying “political” or “ideological” flags a place in public.

Flags that promote an “agenda,” like the Pride and Black Lives Matter flags, will still face a ban, Bulso said.

Similar legislation has been introduced in Florida and Utah, while school boards across the country have proposed and implemented their own Pride flag bans, policies characterized by the ACLU as a “disturbing new trend.”

JUST IN: A new Florida House bill, HB 901, would ban cities, counties, schools, state colleges, and state universities from flying LGBTQ or Transgender Pride flags.

If conservative lawmakers won’t stop trying to erase us, we won’t stop showing up to oppose them.