Texas evangelist raises flag lowered for Dolly Parton, calls her ‘fake Christian’ over LGBTQ+ support
A Texas evangelist raised a flag lowered in Dolly Parton’s honour (Facebook/David-H-Grisham | Getty Images)
A Texas evangelist decided that Dolly Parton was not worthy of having the American flag lowered to half-staff in her memory, so he took matters into his own hands.
David Grisham, a Christian street preacher and US military veteran, went to the post office in Borger, Texas, after it had closed on Friday (28 August) and raised the flag back to full-staff. He filmed himself doing it and posted the clip online on 30 August, declaring that the honour should be reserved for people who had “served our country valiantly” rather than “country and western stars”.
Grisham, in a previous written post on Facebook, called Parton a “fake Christian” because she supported LGBTQ+ people, transgender people and same-sex marriage, and said that if the US government wanted to honour her, it should instead “lower that rainbow flag over every sewage treatment plant and garbage dump in America”.
Grisham also said, in that same written post, that he would “lower the American flag to half-staff every Good Friday to honour the death of the most important man in the history of the world and the ultimate founding Father of this country, Jesus Christ. And I would raise it on Easter in celebration of His resurrection from the dead”.
Jesus Christ never served in the United States military and is not a veteran.
When Grisham was asked about the contradiction in a phone call by Friendly Atheist, a reporter with a newsletter on Substack, Grisham said the Jesus comment was partly tongue-in-cheek. He also told Friendly Atheist he had no idea the flags had also been lowered for Charlie Kirk when he died, although Grisham insisted that honour should not have happened either.
The federal government has previously ordered flags lowered to honour people from outside government and the military, including Pope Francis and Kirk. Friendly Atheist points out that Grisham’s Facebook posts show no comparable outrage over those tributes.
Grisham told Friendly Atheist that he does not expect to face legal consequences for raising the flag, arguing that he did not damage anything or desecrate the flag. He also said he did the stunt because of his “love of country” and because he wanted “honour restored to the flag.”
But he was remarkably candid about another reason he does these things: attention.
Grisham described much of his public preaching as a form of “real-life clickbait.” His theory is that if people come to argue with him, he can lower the temperature and eventually try to convert them.
This is also not his first attempt at making headlines through provocation. Grisham has protested LGBTQ+ events, is planning a 9/11 demonstration outside a Texas mosque (which has no connection to the actual events that took place on 9/11), stood outside an elementary school dressed as the Grinch with a “Santa is Fake. Jesus is Real.” sign, and partnered with Rich Penkoski on other confrontational street-preaching campaigns.
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