A bill was reintroduced into Utah’s State Legislature on Thursday, February 13, that would prohibit the rainbow Pride flag and others flags from being displayed on public school campuses and government buildings.
House Bill 77, written by Utah Representative Trevor Lee, aims to ban designs other than the exemptions noted further into the legislation from school and government grounds around the state. The flags that would be allowed are for the state of Utah, the American standard red, white and blue with stars and stripes, military flags, those representing other countries, Native American tribal and official flags for colleges and universities. The bill would also allow “a historic version of a flag … that is temporarily displayed for educational purposes,” such as the Confederate and Nazi party banners.
Speaking at a hearing conducted by the state’s House Education Committee, Lee tried to paint the bill as being protective over the youth in his state. “We are starting to see increasingly more hostile-type interactions between different political factions that we have within our society, and that is no different than what we’re starting to see a lot within our education system,” Lee told the committee. “Our schools should be a place for children to learn, to not feel like they are being pushed or seen as agendas in one way other another as it pertains to political beliefs.”
When questioned about other flags that have especially stark histories attached to them, according to the Salt Lake Tribune, Lee countered that ”There is a difference between displaying flags in curriculum when you’re teaching on them. You don’t censor history here. That’s not what we’re doing.”
“You may have a Nazi flag. You may have a Confederate flag, and so you are allowed to display those flags for the purpose of those lesson plans. If it is part of the curriculum, then that is OK.”
During the hearing on the bill, Millie Dworkin, a senior at Salt Lake Center for Science Education, called the ban “unconstitutional,” as reported by LGBTQ Nation.“You … argue semantics, but you all know this is wrong and immoral. Queer people commit suicide at a higher rate than everybody else,” she said. “This is not because they are inherently prone to commit suicide due to their sexual orientation or gender identity. It is because of how they are treated. If you pass this, you will have queer blood on your hands.”
The amended bill will be heard on the full House floor after the committee voted in favor of the legislation, with the committee’s two Democrats, Reps. Sahara Hayes and Carol Moss, casting the only “nays.”
Last year, unsuccessful attempts to ban the Pride flag were made in Florida and Tennessee. Similar bans may be on the way in other states, as evidenced at a Massachusetts high school, where students spoke out against a proposed flag policy that would remove Pride, Black Lives Matter and Juneteenth flags from school grounds on the same day of the Utah hearing.