Snowflake conservative lifeguard claims to be traumatized by Progress Pride flag

A conservative lifeguard is suing Los Angeles county because he was stationed within the vicinity of a raised Progress Pride flag. He is seeking a “standing exemption” from orders to raise the flag and compensation for “severe emotional distress.”

The plaintiff in the federal suit filed on May 24 is Jeffrey Little, a captain within the LA County Fire Department’s lifeguard division. Not only does he work in one of the gayest professions imaginable, he is typically stationed at Will Rogers Beach, a queer hotspot that has been nicknamed Ginger Rogers Beach. According to the Los Angeles Times, Little is represented by Thomas More Society, a Catholic firm that has challenged abortion rights and the 2020 election results.

Last year, LA county elected to require Pride flags to be flown on government buildings throughout the month of June. Little, who has worked with the fire department for 22 years, demanded exemption from the policy.

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Initially, the department complied with Little’s request to be relocated to Dockweiler Beach, a station that was lacking the proper poles to fly any flags. When Little arrived at the beach, he discovered that three Pride flags were raised nearby by order of a chief.

“I was confused [as] to why they were flying as I was under the impression that I would not have to deal with working in these conditions,” he wrote in his initial complaint.

After he took all three flags down, he received a “direct order” from the chief to reinstate the flags. Little has now named three higher-ups in his lawsuit against the fire department, claiming that he was subject to “religious discrimination” and “retaliation” and threats of “discipline and eventual termination for failure to raise the Progress Pride flag.” He also claimed that he received a death threat calling him a “fascist pig.”

Little’s lawsuit uses religious reasoning to claim the flag represents an ideology rather than an immutable identity validated by major medical organizations.

“The Progress Pride Flag symbolizes and advances a range of disputed viewpoints, both religious and moral, regarding the family, the nature of marriage and human sexuality, the promotion of certain sexual practices, and the identity, nature, and purpose of the human person,” the lawsuit says.

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