A Utah state representative, best known for sponsoring a state bill banning Pride flag in classrooms and government buildings, has recently vowed to restrict public funding from private organizations that create rainbow variants of their logos or sponsor Pride celebrations.
Utah state Rep. Trevor Lee (R) recently expressed disapproval for their state’s NHL team, the Utah Mammoths, unveiling a rainbow-colored Pride month variant of their team’s logo with the caption “Happy Pride!”
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Responding to the logo, Lee claimed that everyone from Utah doesn’t support Pride. It’s worth noting that, in 2019, 77% of adults in the state expressed support for laws that protect LGBTQ+ rights, according to a poll by the Public Religion Research Institute.
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He then wrote, “Watch for some significant legislation this next session that pushes back onto these woke groups!”
A couple of days later, Lee appeared on a conservative radio show where he argued that accepting government funding should require “political neutrality” from private institutions.
Utahns overwhelmingly don’t support pride month.
— Trevor Lee (@VoteTrevorLee) June 1, 2025
We are the most kind people in the world and are taken advantage of because of that kindness.
Nothing makes Utahns more mad when political ideologies get pushed into their lives. And even worse, having taxes prop up these… https://t.co/NzjUn52xVv
In 2024, Smith Entertainment Groups, owner of 2 major league sports teams representing Utah, where approved for nearly $1 billion in government funding from lawmakers in Utah. This money was mainly used for upkeep towards the Delta Center, in which both their teams, the Utah Jazz and the Utah Mammoths, play.
“This is just like the flag bill,” Lee said.
“When the Smith Entertainment Group is going to be receiving close to a billion dollars from taxpayers, that’s no small amount of money; that is where I have some serious issues. If they want to be a private company and group, they can do what they want, but the minute they take taxpayer money, that is our money going to fund their agendas,” Lee added.
Many legal experts warn that what Rep. Lee is proposing is wildly unconstitutional and threatens fundamental First Amendment protections.
The First Amendment protects your right to take ideological viewpoints, and it’s well-established that you don’t lose that right when you receive money from the government.
– Carolyn Iodice, Legislative and Policy Director for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE)
“Lee is proposing a bill that would require the company that owns the Utah Mammoth and Jazz to restrict their speech in order to conform to the government’s viewpoint. The First Amendment forbids the government from trying to control the speech or viewpoints of private companies through the threat of withholding funds, or by making the availability of funding dependent on the companies speaking in a way the government prefers,” explains Katie Fallow, deputy Litigation Director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University.
Fallows points to the Supreme Court case of Moody v. NetChoice LLC, which established that “a State may not interfere with private actors’ speech to advance its own vision of ideological balance.”
Carolyn Iodice, Legislative and Policy Director for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), criticizes the GOP’s recently favored strategy of using government funding as a weapon to suppress conflicting expression.
“The fact that the government is choosing to subsidize an arena for the team does not grant the government any right to ban it from creating a logo for Pride Month — or for Christmas, the Fourth of July, or anything else. The First Amendment protects your right to take ideological viewpoints, and it’s well-established that you don’t lose that right when you receive money from the government,” Iodice says.
Lee has a history of anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment. In 2022, investigative reporters from the Salt Lake Tribune discovered Lee was secretly running a social media account that promoted election conspiracy theories and attacked women and LGBTQ+ people. This was shortly after Lee had used transphobic slurs on a Utah-based podcast.
Rep. Lee is most well-known for being one of the main sponsors of HB 77 in Utah, a measure that would ban pride flags in schools and local government buildings, along with having an amendment allowing Nazi and Confederate flags for “educational purposes.”
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