Idaho Law Removes LGBTQ “Pride” Flag From State Buildings

BOISE, ID--Idaho Governor Brad Little recently signed a law that only allows municipalities to fly flags that are on the state's approved list. As a result, the city of Boise had to remove the rainbow LGBTQ “pride” flag from its city hall.

Last year, the Idaho legislature passed a previous law that banned non-official flags from state and municipal buildings. However, the Boise City Council then passed a resolution making the LGBTQ “pride” flag an official flag to circumvent the state law.

Now, House Bill 561 only allows state governments to fly a limited option of flags, including the American flag, state flags, official military flags, official Indian tribe flags, the POW/MIA flag, and assortment of other national and international flags on special occasions. While the previous law had no enforcement mechanism, HB 561 comes with a civil penalty of $2,000 per flag for each day a non-official flag is flown. The Idaho legislature overwhelmingly passed the bill in the House 58-11-1 and in Senate 26-8 vote.

Boise Mayor Lauren McLean noted the LGBTQ flag had been flying in the city for more than a decade, but took it down to avoid a “substantial penalty” on Boise taxpayers.

The law allows Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador to enforce it through lawsuits against offending cities and to seek civil court fines, but the attorney general must warn the municipality and allow it up to 10 days to resolve the issue.

Since 2022, municipalities across the nation have adopted varying approaches to displaying flags on government property after Liberty Counsel’s unanimous victory at the U.S. Supreme Court in Shurtleff v. City of Boston. 

In Shurtleff, Boston illegally censored Christian viewpoints by denying flying the Christian flag in a public forum open to “all applicants,” and so the High Court held when a city opens a public forum to private expression, it cannot discriminate based on viewpoint without violating the First Amendment.

In Shurtleff, the High Court ruled that government does not “own the expression” when it opens a forum to the public. Yet, some states like Idaho are choosing the route of neutrality on ideological issues in its official forum to avoid endorsing one ideology over another and to avoid any potential legal entanglements between free speech and government endorsement.

Liberty Counsel’s Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “Idaho’s law strictly defines ‘official’ government expression via flags and closes a loophole whereby municipalities could embrace a contentious ideology as government expression. The Shurtleff decision established that if a government maintains tight control over a medium and uses it to deliver a specific message, it is ‘government speech.’ The law provides a legal roadmap for government entities to remain neutral because ideological and contentious political flags do not belong in official government speech.”

For more information on Shurtleff v. City of Boston, visit www.LC.org/flag.

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