SARASOTA, FLORIDA — A Florida father says he lost his job after speaking out against bullying his son endured at the hands of LGBTQ students and teachers.
Conservative activist Jason Brunt told the Gateway Pundit that his boss fired him because his recent public comments at the May Sarasota County Schools board meeting were “making people feel unsafe at work.”
During the public comments section of the May 2 meeting, Brunt shared a story about how his son was being bullied for not complying with social pressure from his peers and teachers.
“They called him a bigot and harassed him for not wearing rainbow colors to support a TikTok trend that they were trying to pull – a gay pride stunt – in the school,” Brunt asserted.
When Brunt told his son to report the incident to the school counselor, he says his son responded: “Dad, I can’t. They’re all against me. The teachers and counselors have rainbow stickers everywhere. No matter what I do, I’m going to be in trouble because they’re gay and I’m straight and they could do whatever they want, and I will always be wrong.”
Brunt added that he has two other sons who confirmed they also see teachers wearing rainbow stickers at school who “do not listen to straight students who have complaints.”
Sarasota County Schools did not respond to a request for comment.
VIRAL VIDEO TURNS INTO A “NIGHTMARE”
Brunt says a video of his comments garnered over 120,000 views on social media and initially triggered a wave of support.
“The attention soon turned into a nightmare,” he said. “Radical progressive activists began attacking me personally, sending me hate mail and threats. The situation only escalated when I began receiving phone calls at my job, making false allegations and defaming me to an obscene level.”
The day after his comments went viral, Brunt says his boss at United Air Temp told him his views could upset LGBTQ employees at the company and create an unsafe work environment. United Air Temp did not respond to a request for comment.
Later that night, Brunt claims he began receiving threats.
“Many of the messages were obscene and vulgar, including many threatening homosexual acts on myself or my children,” he said. “I began to receive phone calls saying that they were coming for me, that our addresses were online, that they knew where we lived, that we better watch our backs, and that they wished the vilest stuff imaginable on our sons.”
The only names Brunt specifically calls out for these attacks are Beth Weinstein and her organization Pro-Choice Pinellas.
In a Facebook post, Pro-Choice Pinellas called Brunt’s new heterosexual pride coalition Florida Straights a “hate group” and pointed out that it is not a registered non-profit, but denied contacting his employer.
“The calls to his employer came from people in HIS community in Sarasota, after he made homophobic and transphobic contents in a public forum,” a spokesperson for Pro-Choice Pinellas wrote in an email. “We would not be surprised if he sent ‘threatening’ emails to himself. People who engage in deplorable behavior also seem to enjoy playing the victim.”
Weinstein is currently being sued by another conservative activist in Pinellas County for allegedly doxing conservatives.
MASKING KIDS AND MEIN KAMPF
In September 2021, Brunt spoke out against mask mandates pushed by the district.
He accused the board members of “changing the rules overnight to disrupt freedom of choice and speech.”
Brunt quoted a passage from Adolf Hitler’s infamous manifesto Mein Kampf to underscore his antipathy for masking children.
“The struggle for the culture was waged perhaps in its bitterest form around the school,” Brunt read. “This was the nursery where the seeds had to be water, which were to spring up and form future generations.”
