This year, Idaho legislators tackled a vexing problem. Some places in the state were flying the rainbow flag, the symbol of gay pride! Determined to ensure that visitors to The Handmaid State didn’t confuse Idaho as a place that would be welcoming of LGBT people, they passed House Bill 96, which only allows the American flag, the Idaho (or other states’) flag, the city flag, and military flags to be displayed by any government entity.

The problem for the legislators today is that they failed to include any enforcement mechanism in House Bill 96, so that flying the gay pride flag—as the city of Boise continues to do—may be illegal, but there’s no arrest, fine, or jail term that can be issued for violating that law.

This has angered Republican Attorney General Raul Labrador—who you may remember from his amicus brief asking the Supreme Court to nationally ban gender-affirming healthcare for trans kids, like Idaho has—who wrote to Boise Mayor Lauren McLean, “Though you are required to govern the city in accordance with the law, you have instead chosen to defy the Legislature … and to act as though your personal political views exempt you from compliance.”

Labrador has threatened that in the next legislative session, Republican lawmakers will add enforcement mechanisms to the Pride Flag ban. He suggests that they pass a law like House Bill 22 from 2023, which withheld state tax money from the city of Boise after it directed its police to make enforcement of anti-abortion laws its lowest police priority in 2022.

In addition to the ban making it illegal to fly Pride flags at the city hall, it also bans flags all along the fifteen blocks of historic Harrison Boulevard, an upscale neighborhood in Boise’s North End well known for its progressive leanings. The median of the boulevard where the flags fly is controlled by the Ada County Highway District.

As explained by a Republican senator, it’s important to ban the flying of the Pride flag on government property. “The ultimate goal is for us to fly flags that unite and don’t divide,” he said. Which really drills down to the entire national Republican crusade against diversity, equity, and inclusion. In their mind, a recognizing a group that’s been historically marginalized, be they gay, trans, Black, immigrant, or disabled, somehow divides us. I suppose so—it divides those of us who want to end their marginalization from those who do not, like Idaho Republicans.