Members of the LGBTQ community unsuccessfully urged members of a Senate committee on Tuesday to reject a proposal that would ban local governments and public colleges and universities from displaying a flag that represents a political viewpoint.
Including ones that represent a “racial, sexual orientation and gender, or politically ideology viewpoint.”
The measure (SB 100) is sponsored by Republicans Randy Fine from Brevard County and Jonathan Martin from Lee County.
“If someone wants to walk in here draped in a flag of any political group, so be it, it’s their First Amendment right. If you want to hang it your yard, so be it. But a teacher should not be hanging a political flag in their classroom, having a government take a position on political views,” Fine told the Senate Community Affairs Committee.
“That is the idea. You shouldn’t be hanging them on flagpoles. Government should be in the governing business. Politics should be left to the politicians.”
LGBTQ advocates said the measure is aimed at local governments that display the Pride flag in June during Pride Month, and argued there is no compelling reason to pass such mandates on to local governments.
“The flag ban bill is unnecessary, unclear, unconstitutional, and dangerous,” said Jon Harris Mauer, public policy director with Equality Florida. “This bill is unnecessary. It does not help Floridians struggling with insurance and housing affordability. Instead it is a made-up solution to a cultural war for political purposes. But it will have real harms.”
“It’s wrong because LGBTQ+ is not political and this bill sends a message that our diversity shouldn’t be celebrated and people identifying as LGBTQ+ should be ashamed of who they are and hurts the fight against bullying,” said Tallahassee resident Colton Taylor. “I believe we should embrace each other lovingly, have compassion, see each other’s humanity, protect the LGBTQ+ community, and recognize that diversity is our strength.”
‘Special’ rights
John Labriola with the Christian Family Coalition of Florida supported the bill.
“The bill does not mention LGBTQ flags but it does say that you can’t have political flags, which that flag would be,” he said. After he was challenged on that assertion by South Florida Democratic Sen. Shevrin Jones that the Pride and/or Black Lives Matter flags were political, he fired back.
“The LGBT flag promotes a specific viewpoint that there should be special rights for LGBT people which isn’t going —” Labriola began.
“Special rights or equal rights?” Jones interjected.
“No, special rights. We believe in equal rights. We don’t believe in special rights,” Labriola said.
Perhaps most controversially, the bill would allow active or retired members of the armed forces or National Guard to “take reasonable efforts to stop someone from desecration, destruction, or removal of the United States flag.”
“I don’t want a retired military person to want or feel that they would have to enforce this bill,” said Naples Republican Kathleen Passidomo. “I do not want to see a 90-year-old veteran getting into an altercation with someone twice his size.”
Although she supported it on Tuesday, Passidomo, chair of the Rules Committee, said that unless constitutional problems are resolved for the measure, “I don’t see it going forward.”
Party-line vote
Fine argued that the citizens who spoke out about how their First Amendment rights would be violated if the measure passed wouldn’t feel the same way if some of those local governments were flying “Make America Great Again” flags.
The bill passed along party lines.
With Fine leaving the Senate today to campaign for a congressional seat next week, Lee County Republican Sen. Jonathan Martin will carry the bill the rest of the way this session. It has one more committee stop before making it to the floor.
The measure’s House companion (HB 75) is being sponsored by Republicans Berny Jacques from Pinellas County and David Borrero from Miami-Dade County. It has yet to be heard in any committee so far.
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