While LGBTQ+ rights continue to gain traction across America, there are still those, including lawmakers, who aren’t in support. In Tennessee, a state representative is championing a bill through the Tennessee legislature to ban the display of Pride flags on state property. According to the rep, parents are interested in raising their kids with values “that were in existence at the time that our country was founded.”
The Republican State Rep. Gino Bulso first introduced House Bill 1605 in December 2023. It was interesting that amongst the values, Bulso did not include slavery, eradication of the indigenous population, and other values that existed when America was founded. Nonetheless, he believes families need values that existed during the nation’s founding years.
However, Bulso is not alone in his beliefs. Speaker of the U.S. House, Mike Johnson (R-LA), a Christian nationalist who believes that civic life and government should be based on the Bible. Bulso maintains that 18th-century values should guide Americans.
“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.”
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According to Bulso, the Pride flag violates the moral codes that date back several generations. “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.”
Rep Bulso says that the Pride and trans flags represent the 2015 Supreme Court decision to legal marriage equality. He also referred to them as a misguided interpretation of the 14th Amendment that mandates states to recognize same-sex marriage.
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“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.”
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Furthermore, Bulso’s bill bans all flags except the U.S. and Tennessee state flags from being hoisted on government buildings. He also said flags symbolizing agendas, like the Pride and Black Lives Matter flags, will be banned. However, the Equality Project in Tennessee has protested Bulso’s legislation. “We live here; this is our home; this is our state; the capitol is as much our building as it is anyone else’s, and we’re not going anywhere.”
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