Angry Republicans are going to protest against a “Hate has no home here” flag in a classroom

A Republican organization in Florida is demanding a school teacher take down a flag that says, “Hate has no home here.”

“The issue at hand is that the district needs to get out of having any type of political influence on our children,” said Lee County Republican Executive Committee chair Michael Thompson as his group announced that they would be protesting an upcoming Lee County School Board meeting.

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“There are people in [Miami] who do not feel safe here, do not feel protected here, don’t feel the love.”

The words on the flag are printed in various colors on black fabric. On the flag are five hands holding up hearts. One heart is in the colors of the rainbow Pride flag, one in the colors of the trans Pride flag, another has a peace sign, one says “Black Lives Matter,” and one has an American flag on it.

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The Republican organization says that the flag violates the state’s Stop WOKE Act, a law that was passed to ban “critical race theory” in Florida Schools and which has had a devastating impact on teachers’ ability to discuss Black history. Thompson said that the Black Lives Matter message and the two Pride flags violate the law. The law bans any attempt to “indoctrinate or persuade” students in principles that are not “consistent with specified principles of individual freedom” and also bans any instruction that says that people are responsible for past actions due to their “race, sex, or national origin.”

Thompson said that he learned about the flag in December when someone sent him a picture of it, so he asked the school district to take it down. The district said that it couldn’t force the teacher to take it down but that the teacher agreed to cover up the “Black Lives Matter” part of it but not the two Pride hearts since the Stop WOKE Act doesn’t say anything about Pride symbols.

This didn’t satisfy Thompson.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s Black Lives Matter, they’re also promoting transgender and LGBT to our students,” Thompson told the Fort Myers News-Press. “The school districts need to stay the hell out of parenting.”

As for the state’s Parental Rights in Education Act – aka “Don’t Say Gay” – the district said that the flag isn’t part of any curriculum, so it’s not covered by that law either.

“If there is a loophole, the attorneys and representatives will figure it out,” Thompson said. “These people find loopholes, and they basically take advantage of everything that they can do in order to push through indoctrination upon our children, and I’m not going to put up with it.”

“The District is aware and continues to work toward a satisfactory resolution,” a district representative said.

The protest is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. on February 6 during a regular school board meeting, and they are telling people to sign up to speak during the public comment part of the meeting.

“I hope we can bring the entire state of Florida down here,” Thompson said.