HELENA, Montana (LifeSiteNews) – Montana enacted a law to prevent any banners representing political activist groups from flying on schools or government property, effectively banning LGBT “pride” flags from taxpayer grounds.
HB 819 establishes that “No flag or banner may be displayed in or on government property, including but not limited to state buildings and grounds, public schools, and other government-owned facilities,” other than the American flag, state flags, the official flags of cities, counties, or localities, official school flags, law enforcement and military flags, and banners of similar non-partisan purpose.
“No flags or banners may be displayed on state property that represent a political viewpoint, including but not limited to flags or banners regarding a political party, race, sexual orientation, gender, or political ideology,” it adds.
The ban specifically applies to “government-controlled displays,” i.e., flags erected by a facility’s administrators themselves as opposed to unofficial displays by student groups. It also does not govern whatever symbols state employees wear on their clothes or jewelry.
“Government buildings, schools and public facilities serve all citizens and should not be used to promote political, ideological or activist messaging,” declared the bill’s lead sponsor, Republican state representative Braxton Mitchell, PinkNews reported.
It is an article of progressive faith that gender is no more than a matter of self-perception that individuals are free to change at will. But according to modern biology, sex is not a subjective sense of self but an objective scientific reality, established by an individual’s chromosomes from their earliest moments of existence and reflected by hundreds of genetically based characteristics.
Yet for years LGBT activists have worked to promote “gender fluidity,” the idea that sexual identity is separate from biology and discernible only by personal perception, across public education, libraries, health care, and cultural traditions such as beauty contests, school homecomings, and athletic competitions.
Critics say their efforts have yielded a wide array of harms, both to the physical and mental health of gender-confused individuals themselves as well as to the rights, health, and safety of those who disagree, such as girls and women forced to share intimate facilities with males, female athletes forced to compete against biological males with natural physical advantages, and individuals forced to affirm false sexual identities in violation of their consciences, their understanding of scientific fact, and/or their religious beliefs.
In April, Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte also signed laws to exclude biological males from women’s restrooms, lockers, and showers, and to limit school athletic programs mean for girls to actual girls. The following month, he repealed a mandate for “gender balance and proportional representation of minorities” in filling state government vacancies, effectively eliminating DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) ideology from state hiring.
