In a 70-24 vote, the Tennessee House of Representatives decides to ban displaying pride flags in public schools.
After a heated debate, Republicans told Democratic Rep. Justin Jones (Nashville) that he was out of order.
Earlier, two gay rights activists were ejected from the gallery as they kept on interfering in the proceedings and arguing that this limits the symbol of the LGBTQ+ community in schools.
House Bill 1605, sponsored by the GOP, proposes that public schools will only exhibit US and state flags, with exceptions for POW/MIA flags and official school flags.
Although the legislation did not explicitly state the pride flag, authors of the bill expressed this during the debate.
Primary sponsor Rep. Gino Bulso (R-District 61) pressed that the bill intends to protect parental rights, as many constituents raised concerns about these pride flags in the classrooms.
Rep. Bulso added, “What we’re doing is making sure parents are the ones who are allowed to instill in their children the values they want to instill.”
The bill would pave the way for setting up an enforcement system where parents and guardians of students who are attending a public school may file a lawsuit or complaint challenging the display of a certain flag by a school, employee, or its agents that doesn’t fall under the provisions on the legislation.
Moreover, the legislation states that it: “Prohibits a local education agency or public charter school from displaying, or permitting any of its employees or agents to display, any flag other than certain identified flags on or in a public school. Authorizes a student, a student’s parent or guardian, or a school employee to file a civil action against the LEA or public charter school in which the student is enrolled, or the school employee is employed, in chancery court, if the LEA or public charter school does not remedy a violation within 10 days of receiving a written notice of the violation from the student, parent or guardian, or school employee.”
Before this, the bill was delayed for almost a month as lawmakers, especially liberal state house legislators, argued that this was too restrictive.
As amended, the bill specifically prohibits the display of any flags that “represent a political viewpoint, including but not limited to, a partisan, racial, sexual orientation, gender, or other ideological viewpoint.”
Aside from this proposal, state’s GOP lawmakers have already restricted classroom discussions on gender and sexuality, banned gender “correcting” care, and limited drag shows.
