Why Utah should put pride flags in the Great Salt Lake

Toxic dust storms can cause respiratory conditions, developmental issues and even cancer. But pride flags threaten to bring almost certain inclusiveness and acceptance, AKA the silent killers.

It’s June 2025, and Utahns are in good hands. Their legislators are hard at work battling a truly existential danger, one that threatens to do irreparable harm not only to the state’s economic and cultural future, but to the very health and well-being of its people — the scourge of rainbow colored flags.

If that doesn’t sound quite right, there’s good reason. While the state has been busy policing what color cloth can and can’t be hung up in government buildings, the biggest issue facing the state — the rapid decline of the Great Salt Lake — continues to be largely passed over. Most bills in the 2025 legislative session that would have dealt with water conservation failed, continuing the state’s reliance on record snow years to stabilize the lake.

A dry Salt Lake would leave numerous toxins and metals exposed and put the surrounding population (around 3 million in the Wasatch Front) at risk of harmful dust storms. It would affect global wildlife populations and food markets. It would rob Utah’s ski resorts of their coveted lake effect storms, possibly ahead of the 2034 Winter Olympics. Utah’s booming economy would likely take a hit and the housing market would undoubtedly follow.

But at least it wouldn’t be gay. Our proud, dry, toxic, straight lake bed would be a shining example to the rest of the world of a place that has its values in the right place. When the sun rises over the Salt Lake City of tomorrow (which will have to change its name to Billboard Town or something), our leaders will gaze through the thick dust at the dim light beyond and proudly say through their N-95s, “Now this is heterosexual.”

For those of us who care about the Great Salt Lake (and breathing air and having jobs and earning money), it’s a daunting future. But maybe we can use the state’s righteous persecution of the dastardly ROYGBIV color scheme (a pursuit that may soon extend to private companies) to our advantage.

If we decided to plant our pride flags in and around the Great Salt Lake, the state Legislature would have to pay attention, right? They’ve proven that they can ignore the destruction of a natural wonder pretty easily, but they couldn’t look away if that growing ecological disaster was #LoudAndProud. They’d have to take a highly publicized and politicized visit, and maybe then they’d notice that the water levels were a little lower than the last time they were there. Which we have to all assume was in middle school.

Of course, they could easily just rip out the pride flags and be on their way, filing the Great Salt Lake away with homelessness, affordable housing and other problems that aren’t gay enough to pay attention to.

But what if we told them that we found the pride flags because the lake was shrinking? That might get their attention. Dust is one thing to find beneath a rapidly drying lake, but pride flags are an entirely new issue. Sure, toxic dust storms can cause health problems like respiratory conditions, developmental issues and even cancer. But pride flags threaten to bring almost certain inclusiveness and acceptance, AKA the silent killers. Diverting more water to the lake could bury those rainbow raiders beneath at least five feet of water. Better make it 10 feet to be safe!

If that doesn’t work, we’ve still got options. Imagine the stir-up if they found out that male brine shrimp are going to the bathroom in the same spaces as female brine shrimp. Not only that, but the Great Salt Lake is also a “safe space” for brine shrimp, where only they’re allowed to survive! That kind of woke DEI nonsense is the sort of thing that needs to be kept away from our children beneath five to 10 feet of water.And what if they were to learn that the antelopes and bison on Antelope Island not only don’t subscribe to the binary gender system, they don’t even know what it is? Plus, they’re running around with their genitals exposed! Well, legislators would need to keep that den of sin away from good, wholesome citizens by sequestering it between miles and miles of salty water.

Because that’s what the pride flag ban is supposedly about, right? Protecting people, mostly children and young adults, from being exposed to dangerous and harmful ideology. And I actually agree with our legislators here: Children need to be protected from harmful things. After all, what kind of society lets its children be exposed to that kind of preventable, politicized danger?

And a second question: What’s more dangerous, rainbows or emphysema?

Brian Higgins is a writer and comedian in Salt Lake City.

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