At the end of a news story on KXLF-TV last week, Cheyenne Crooker referred to Montana’s Legislative leaders and governor as “morons.”

Crooker is the founder and president of the Butte Pride Foundation, and she feels her group is under attack because, well, it clearly is. Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte recently signed a bill that bans pride flags from flying on government property.

That means that a pride flag will not be flying high at the Butte-Silver Bow Courthouse this June, like it has during “Pride Month” in recent years.

The law allows the flying of the flags of foreign governments, but not the colorful flag that represents diversity and inclusion.

So, a Russian flag is OK, but a pride flag is bad.

Sure, the bill says the flags of any groups are prohibited on government property, but even a moron can see that the unjust law is targeting the flag that represents the LGBTQ+ community.

This should not sit well with anyone, but it particularly does not sit well with Crooker, who will not simply crawl into a hole and disappear like many apparently would like.

“The morons that are in charge right now can continue to try to silence us and make us go away, and we will not go anywhere,” she told Meagan Thompson of KXLF. “We will continue to be here.”

It is terrific to see someone punch back at the people who enacted the bigoted bill.

However, not all of those who pushed the bill are really morons. Some are just bullies, and they rose to power because they can manipulate the electorate, which includes too many morons. They do this by creating a Boogie Man to distract voters and get them to vote against their own best interests.

For quite some time now, that Boogie Man has been the LGBTQ+ community.

They are going to take your children and give them sex-change operations. They are going to indoctrinate your child to be gay. They are going to have men playing volleyball against your little girls.

These are things they really told us during the last election.

Any of these claims should be immediately shot down with a good point and laugh. But a whole lot of people fall for this Boogie Man approach that wins elections time after time.

As I walked door-to-door to campaign for chief executive of Butte-Silver Bow last year, so many people asked me my opinion on transgender athletes competing against girls and women.

I answered each one the same. First, it is not an issue that will or should ever go across the desk of the chief executive. Second, in my 25 plus years writing about sports, I have never encountered a single transgender athlete.

Yes, I know that the University of Montana had a transgender woman run with the women’s cross country team a few years ago, but that was it.

To me, it was never an issue. I do not think it is fair to have transgender women compete in women’s and girls’ sports, but it is not an issue that I stay up worrying about.

In Butte, we have literally seen more stampeding elephants running down Harrison Avenue than we have seen transgender athletes compete in women’s and girls’ sports.

I do not stay up all night worrying about elephants, either.

Of the half a million NCAA athletes who competed in sports over the last school year, fewer than 10 were transgender. But those 10 swung elections at the local, state and national level.

That is because politicians are good at creating distractions that fire up their base.

Now, the issue is how do we stand up to these bullies who try to prey on people who are notorious for just wanting to live and let live?

Of course, the best way to deal with a bully is to punch him in the mouth. That is a remedy that has stood the test of time.

But we cannot simply just punch our legislature in the chops. We cannot just punch our governor in the teeth, though he might try to do that to us.

Gianforte, after all, is well known for body slamming and choking a reporter.

But we can do it with our words, like Cheyenne did.

Like so many mayors, Butte-Silver Bow Chief Executive J.P. Gallagher, who beat me in the election last year, continued to offer his pride proclamation at the Courthouse on Monday.

So, at least we’ve got that going for us, which is nice.

Two years ago, though, Gallagher made the same pride proclamation, and then in the same breath banned Adria Jawort, a transgender woman, from speaking at the First Friday’s event at the Butte-Silver Bow Public Library.

That did not happen because Gallagher was being a bigot. At least I do not think he was being one. It happened because he was not brave enough to stand up to the bullies.

He said he spoke with the county attorney at the time and decided to pull the plug on the library’s speaker because Gianforte had recently signed a bill to ban drag shows in public libraries, even though Jawort is not a drag performer.

Predictably, a federal judge saw that that law was clearly unconstitutional and blocked the state from enforcing it. Even a caveman lawyer could have seen that one coming.

But Gallagher and the county attorney at the time gave in to the bullies and violated the civil rights of Jawort, a Native American who planned to speak on the history of the Two-Spirit People. That led to Butte-Silver Bow and Gallagher being named in a civil rights lawsuit.

It is never a good time to bow to bullies, like Gallagher did in 2023. Or like he is this year.

No, giving that proclamation and then submitting to an unjust law is not my definition of being courageous.

While he did go through with the pride proclamation, he is again giving in to the bullies by not flying the pride flag because the governor signed another bill that could very well be blocked by a federal judge.

Yes, I understand he has again been put into a tough spot. But tough people should be able to rise to the moment.

Had I won the election, here is how I would have handled the situation.

Bright and early on June 1, I would have invited the entire community — and media members from around the state and nation — to watch me raise the pride flag outside the Courthouse.

Then, with the cameras on, I would dare the governor to come take it down. I would also tell him that we will see him in court for his discrimination and overreach by the state government.

If he sent state troopers to take the flag down, I would just raise another one up.

Even if they threw me in jail, I would do that every day of the month to let those bullies know that Butte does not stand for hate. We would tell the world Butte stands up for the rights of everyone.

You and I are not the chief executive. But we can still stand up and fight the hate and ignorance that is behind this unjust law.

We can call out our “friends” who make hateful comments on social media. We can fight against this intolerable ignorance that turns the LGBTQ+ community — or any law-abiding community — into the Boogie Man.

We need to be loud about it, too. We need to make the bigots feel uncomfortable again.

We need to all be like Cheyenne and tell people when they are acting like morons.

— Bill Foley, who lost the election by 2,464 votes, can be reached at foles74@gmail.com. Follow him at twitter.com/Foles74 or Bluesky at @foles74.bsky.social. Listen to him on the ButteCast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.