The Iowa Supreme Court has upheld the conviction of a man who trespassed at five homes in the small town of Boone and left notes referring to Pride flags on display that read, “Burn that gay flag.” The handwritten notes were taped to the front doors of five Boone renters and homeowners in June 2021; all the homes displayed rainbow flags or decals. The man, Robert Clark Geddes, claimed on appeal of his conviction for trespassing as a hate crime that the ruling violated his free speech rights. A majority of Iowa’s high court rejected that argument. According to the court’s decision, the recipients told police they considered the notes alarming, annoying, and threatening. In the surveillance video too, Geddes was identified as the perpetrator and was charged with five counts of trespassing as a hate crime. However, while declaring the ruling, Justice Matthew McDermott wrote that there was no evidence in the record that indicated the targets of Geddes’ notes were members of the LGBTQ+ community, whether Geddes believed they were, nor if any of the residents had an association with an actual person in those protected classes. He said, “As a symbol, a flag doesn’t independently create or express actual association with particular persons. Not everyone who displays a pirate flag is associated with actual pirates.”
