Could this bill block annual display of LGBTQ+ Pride flags in Boise’s North End?
The colorful LGBTQ+ Pride flags displayed each June along Harrison Boulevard in Boise’s North End have been embattled for years.
In June, more than 20 of the flags were stolen — the fourth year in a row that the flags were taken or vandalized, the Statesman previously reported.
Now, the flags face a possible legal challenge.
A bill to bar government entities from displaying certain flags passed the Idaho House 53-17 on Tuesday and was introduced Wednesday in the Senate.
As drafted, “it does not appear that Pride flags would be approved for display under the law,” said Rachel Bjornestad, a spokesperson for the Ada County Highway District. (ACHD controls Harrison Boulevard’s medians, she told the Statesman.)
House Bill 96, sponsored by Heather Scott, R-Blanchard, aims to restrict flags at government sites to the U.S. flag, military flags, the prisoner-of-war flag, tribal flags or local governments’ own flags, she said on the House floor.
“We don’t want government to be promoting division or political ideology or any social movements,” she said. Photographs distributed to lawmakers on the House floor included pictures of Pride flags at Boise’s City Hall and along Harrison Boulevard.
For the North End Neighborhood Association, it was not clear Wednesday what the bill could mean for the flags on Harrison, given the mix of responsibility for the street between ACHD and the city of Boise’s Parks and Recreation and Public Works departments, said Erik Hagen, the association’s president.
“How the language in the bill about governmental organizations flying flags would affect us is anyone’s guess,” he told the Statesman by email. “We’ll just have to wait and see how this all plays out.”
The North End Neighborhood Association owns the U.S. and Idaho flags that fly along Harrison, but it does not own, manage or install the Pride flags, Hagen said. Boise Pride coordinates with The Community Center, a nonprofit in the North End that offers educational and developmental programs to the LGBTQ+ community, to put up the flags each year — but it’s otherwise not connected with the flags, said Donald Williamson, Boise Pride’s Executive Director.
Still, Williamson spoke out against the bill in a statement provided to the Statesman on Wednesday.
“By banning the display of the Pride flag on government property, Boise Pride argues that the state is sending a message that some communities are less valued than others,” he wrote. “Boise Pride urges lawmakers to redirect their focus toward critical issues that directly impact Idahoans’ well-being, rather than engaging in debates over symbolic displays.”
This story was originally published February 20, 2025 at 4:00 AM.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified the group that owned and installed the Pride flags along Harrison Boulevard. The owner’s identity is unclear.
