"California school board president says he received death threats after banning LGBT ‘pride’ flags"

A California school board president is speaking out about death threats he received from LGBT activists following a decision to limit flags on district property to the national and state flags.

Ryan Jergensen of Sunol Glen Unified School District told Fox News this week that he and his family had received threats, encouraged by a local LGBT activist, after the board passed a resolution barring all flags except the American and California flags to be raised in the district.

“Some radical individuals in our community and some outside of our community invited these people to come and disrupt the education of our students,” Jergensen said. “Some of these individuals who were sprung up and brought in even emailed death threats to myself and, I understand, the other board member as well.”

“These threats included things like threatening that I should get life insurance, this weekend might be my last, and that I should hide my wife and my children because [the activists are] deciding whether or not to go out hunting for Christians.”

Jergensen then explained that he “[doesn’t] mind spirited debate [and] disagreement” but emphasized that “you cannot threaten a board member, threaten their life, threaten their children; that’s something I won’t stand for. That’s beyond the pale, that is unacceptable.”

The threats reportedly resulted from “one member of our community who posted lies and accusations that I am affiliated with various hate groups, some named, some unnamed, that I have no affiliation with at all.” 

When the unspecified accusations were not “taken down” upon request, Jergensen “took that evidence to a judge” in Alameda County, who “granted a restraining order on this individual to limit the negative influence that they could have on inciting harassment and attacks on me and my family.” 

The board president then defended the decision to restrict flags in the district to the national and state flags, citing that “our main goal as the school board and as administrators should be, number one, to worry about the students and the education of our students.”