GOP lawmakers in two states are trying to ban Pride flags in schools

Republican lawmakers in Florida and Tennessee are trying to ban LGBTQ+ Pride flags in schools.

This week, Tennessee state Rep. Gino Bulso (R) introduced House Bill 1605, which would prohibit public and charter schools from displaying “any flag other than the United States flag and the official Tennessee state flag.”

Related: A city banned Pride flags on public property. Now they’re getting sued.

Two Human Relations commissioners were fired for flying the Pride flag. They say the flag ban violated their rights.

While the bill does not specifically mention Pride flags, Bulso told The Tennessean that he was encouraged to file the legislation by parents and a school board member in Williamson County, Tennessee, who opposed displaying rainbow and Trans Pride flags in the area’s public schools.

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“I’ve heard the same types of issues from legislators in other counties,” he said.

Bulso suggested that Pride flags represent “political statements” and do not belong in schools.

“A school should be a place where a child goes to learn, not a place where a child goes to be indoctrinated,” he said. “We’re simply trying to remove political statements that either educators, administrators, or others want to make in a school setting so that the school can focus on educating the child, and not getting involved in these kinds of political issues.”

Bulso claimed that the bill was not intended to punish students who display Pride flags on their backpacks but to prevent “authority figures from injecting into the classroom these political statements.”

Meanwhile, in Florida, state Rep. David Borrero (R) introduced similar legislation banning flags “that represent [sic] a political viewpoint, including, but not limited to, a politically partisan, racial, sexual orientation and gender, or political ideology viewpoint.” Unlike the Tennessee bill, Florida’s House Bill 901 bans such flags not only from schools, but from government buildings and universities as well.

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.