Florida to Enact "Don't Say Gay" Bill
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https://www.cbsnews.com/news/florida-lgbtq-bill-controversy-dont-say-gay/
"If passed, the legislation would go into effect for the 2022-2023 school year. As CBS Miami reports, HB 1557 prohibits instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity in kindergarten through third grade, and, in other grade levels, bars discussion that is not "age or developmentally appropriate." It would also allow parents to sue school districts that go against the law."
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@NF16 said in Florida to Enact "Don't Say Gay" Bill:
As for the bill, it also bans such "instruction" in grades 4 through 12 if it "is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate," neither of which term is defined in the bill, so it affects far more than just kindergarten through 3rd grade. And because the terms are not defined, teachers will self-censor, afraid to say anything for fear it will be misconstrued as "not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate."
All it takes is a single parent to sue, as the law creates a vigilante enforcement scheme giving cash payouts and damages to parents who do so and prevail. And with the terms undefined and ambiguous, the chance of prevailing increases markedly.
Thank you for underlining that the bill certainly affects grades 4 through 12, as well as how the bill's ambiguity will create a legal quagmire and a financial incentive for scheming parents to sue and possibly win millions from the Florida taxpayer.
The goal, as you pointed out, is to advance fear -- and silence any discussion by educators up the grade ladder.
From my perspective, "LGBT" being silenced in schools is a step toward cutting us off at our literal roots.
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Frankly, I don't know how any of you can defend this law. Its purpose is to erase our community's existence in order to comfort and ease the passing down of ignorance from one generation to the next. It's fucking codifying our community's "Otherness."
It fundamentally assumes that conveying to young children tropes, themes, images, narratives, representations, etc. of heterosexual relationships does not equal "instruction on sexual orientation." It is, though.
[https://www.amazon.com/Berenstain-Bears-Family-First-Time/dp/0679881859](link url)
Take, for example, a teacher reading the above Berenstain Bears book to her class. That book is for 4-year olds with vocabulary that a 4-year old would understand. But what does the book also teach the children? It teach little Payton and little Abigail that a "family" is a Momma Bear and a Daddy Bear, with Grandma Bears and Grandpa Bears. Heck, there's even a Berenstain Bears book about Momma Bear having a baby. It's teaching the children about sexuality and hetero-normative behavior.
But the advocates for the bill don't even contemplate that such material teaches about sexuality. Again, it certainly does! As long as the material is hetero-normative, then it's just normal, ordinary, common learning material to the bill's supporters. Only materials discussing non-hetero-normative behavior is "special" material that needs to be locked away in the closet until the children get older.
In other words, hetero-normative images, stories, depictions, etc. are "normal" or "common" or "ordinary" because they are so ubiquitous and numerous. Homosexual or transgender material is not "normal" or "common" or "ordinary" because it is not ubiquitous.... And if this bill is passed, then the might of State Government will ensure that such material NEVER gets the chance to be commonplace. It is state-enforcement of the "Otherness" of the material.
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It is being defended because it is their side that's doing it. Party loyalty and 'owning the libs' has become the default setting and objectivity and rationality have been removed from the equation of deciding what to agree with and promote.
You can see this in action when the the ones that have been fully co-opted are even running interference for the orange oompaloompa's deference to Putin, and support for his military invasion.
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It has nothing to do with party loyalty.
I am against teaching kids things they are too young to understand.
As for Putin, you people support open borders, except when Putin does it. Also, your beloved St Obama and Biden didn't care the last time Putin invaded Ukraine.
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@raphjd said in Florida to Enact "Don't Say Gay" Bill:
It has nothing to do with party loyalty.
It has everything to do with party loyalty, along with a little transphobia, as has been clearly demonstrated in this thread.
I am against teaching kids things they are too young to understand.
And if anyone were actually doing that, you might have a point. They aren't, and you don't. Again, this legislation is not only completely unnecessary, as witnessed by the fact that none of you can actually come up with any real problem that the legislation solves, it is harmful to the LGBTQ community and to the very children you are claiming that you are "protecting."
As for Putin, you people support open borders, except when Putin does it.
ROFL.... This may well be one of the dumbest arguments I've ever heard. What Putin is doing has jack shit to do with "open borders." And nobody in either party wants a fucking invasion. Get real.
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It looks as though Republicans are trying desperately to change the subject and to go on the attack after the uproar caused by this ridiculous bill. On Laura Ingraham's show, the chyron text was:
Liberals are sexually grooming elementary students
and
Dems happy to run on pro-grooming platform
Get used to this, as it's pretty clear that they will be coming after us this election season and likely again in 2024.
It's interesting that the single best example of "cancel culture" is coming from the Republican Party. It would be amusing if it weren't for the harm they are causing, and will continue to cause.
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The problem with this bill is that it (like so many other "social engineering" attempts) solves a problem that either doesn't exist at all, or is already handled by other means.
Let's be clear about this bill though:
- the PRIMARY FOCUS of the bill is not to ban the teaching of LBGTQ+ concepts to grades K-3... no, that's a no-brainer, and a false-flag designed to disguise the real "meat" of the legislation - which is to empower parents to sue school districts over the teaching of LGBTQ+ positive messages.
This is not unlike the Texas law that empowered pro-lifers to sue abortion providers independently and separately as a method of driving them out of business.
Even so - what, exactly, is a Florida Kindergarten teacher supposed to do next year when 5 y/o Billy draws his family - with himself, his dog, and his two mommies?
Oh, and I want to lend my support to those who correctly identify the "grooming" concepts being touted by some in the media (and the Governor his idiot-self) as being anti-Science (like that's new for them) and fear-mongering at its worst!
You cannot "learn" to be homosexual - but you CAN learn to accept homosexuality as a natural occurrence! One seen in nature far beyond humans and other primates!
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@bi4smooth said in Florida to Enact "Don't Say Gay" Bill:
You cannot "learn" to be homosexual - but you CAN learn to accept homosexuality as a natural occurrence! One seen in nature far beyond humans and other primates!
I would amend your statement to: You cannot learn to be homosexual, but you can learn to be empathetic. Empathy comes from understanding. Understanding comes from exposure and experience. This Bill is an attempt to use State Power to prevent children from being taught empathy toward homosexuals.
I'm reminded of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, where Shylock, a Jew, is trying to explain to Solanio and Salarino that a minority is not much different than the majority.
"I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die?"
He's trying to explain to them that Jews are not so different than Christians, and if the Christians would only focus on the commonalities, not the differences, then they would have peace. This Bill is trying to make sure that children cannot be taught that homosexuals are really not that different than heterosexuals.
Also, ignorant assholes like Florida's governor only think of homosexuals in terms of our sexual activity. Homosexuals are, in their minds, defined by the act of shoving cock up assholes. Homosexuality is purely the act of sex between two men or two women. Homosexuality is not companionship, emotional support, or love. In fact, I bet if you asked this Bill's backers if homosexuals are truly capable of loving each other, they'd answer no. I've talked to enough ignorant Southerners and Bible-thumpers to know that a large plurality (if not majority) of them don't actually believe in homosexual "love." Homosexuality is merely deviant lust, not love. And they don't want children taught about anything derivative of deviant lusts.
Also, it's not a mistake that these laws are cropping up now when they are. Anti-gayness has always been a good replacement for the old Southern Strategy, now that open and blatant race-baiting and racism is no longer acceptable. Getting out the vote means triggering people's biases, and there's still a lot of homophobia to motivate voters.
Also, these laws are the product of projects such as Project Blitz, which is responsible, in part, for all of the anti-abortion laws being pushed simultaneously. The idea behind Project Blitz is to insidiously entrench Judeo-Christian laws into America by re-branding them in more palatable forms. For example, don't tout a bill that allows discrimination against LGBT+ individuals directly...instead, either rebrand it a "religious freedom" bill or brand it as protecting something like "children" or "parental freedom."
For those interested:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Blitz](link url)
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Maybe there's a way to bypass the partisanship on this issue by asking a simple question? What, and at what age, should we tell children about sexual orientation?
I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest the following:
6 and below: Nothing. They really have no need to know. We have no right to burden young children with this.
7 - 10: Maybe mention, briefly and without undue emphasis, that a couple who are romantically in love, could be two men or two women as much as it could be opposite sexes, and that that's perfectly fine.
11: Basic education about reproduction, plus mentioning that sex can be for mutual pleasure as well, and same-sex sex is perfectly fine too. Mention age of consent prominently and counsel that the information being taught is just for information at this point.
13 or 14: Somewhat more detailed information with emphasis on safety, consent, and taking one's time and not feeling pressured. Again mention age of consent prominently.
16: A little more of the above, again with a focus on safety, consent, mutual respect, and counseling that there is no need to be promiscuous and it's fine to explore slowly or not at all.
Do children really need much more than that?
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You're trying to solve a "problem" that simply does not exist. Any set of guidelines you can come up with is going to be either too complicated, as your example is, or so ambiguous as to be absolutely worthless, other than to be used as a cudgel against anything LGBTQ related, as is the case with the Florida law.
There is no way to bypass the partisanship on this issue because it originated as a purely partisan issue, not as a problem that needed a solution.
Edited to add that the real bipartisan solution here would be to abandon this harmful nonsense and instead focus on real problems, of which there is no shortage these days.
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@NF16 I think you have a point, although it's worth pointing out that the partisanship goes both ways. The left sees early teaching about sexuality / gender as an opportunity to advance leftwing narratives just as much as the right sees restricting such teachings as politically advantageous.
But it was a genuine question: If we were designing an education system, what would we put in it about sexual orientation, if anything? My age-based proposal was just a starting point.
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@2127493739 said in Florida to Enact "Don't Say Gay" Bill:
11: Basic education about reproduction...
13 or 14: Somewhat more detailed information...
16: A little more of the above...
Do children really need much more than that?
Yes, children really need much more than that.
The age of puberty has been edging downward for generations. My friend's son, 13, got a girl, 14, pregnant and she carried the child to term. A far from unique story these days. They have entire TV shows on trash channels where the teen parents are thismuch older than the example above.
Your narrative begins on-topic with sexual orientation, but soon swerves off into a lot of mentions about consent, and a nod toward safety. Is that safe sex? And is that central to "Don't Say Gay"?
By adding all these other discussion items, you ended up in the weeds.
As a last note, on your age scale, I would say that everything from 13 up needs to be broadened and moved earlier by about 2 to 3 years. "A little more" of whatever by age 16 is hopelessly late in today's society -- they need to be fully educated before then.
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@flozen said in Florida to Enact "Don't Say Gay" Bill:
Yes, children really need much more than that.
The age of puberty has been edging downward for generations. My friend's son, 13, got a girl, 14, pregnant and she carried the child to term. A far from unique story these days. They have entire TV shows on trash channels where the teen parents are thismuch older than the example above.
Your narrative begins on-topic with gender identity, but soon swerves off into a lot of mentions about consent, and a nod toward safety. Is that safe sex?
And as we've traveled far from the focus on sexual orientation, when is detailed info on contraception? Once you left the original, narrow topic and begin adding more (but far from all) aspects of sexuality, you ended up in the weeds.
As a last note, on your age scale, I would say that everything from 13 up needs to be broadened and moved earlier by about 2 to 3 years. "A little more" of whatever by age 16 is hopelessly late in today's society -- they need to be fully educated before then.
Goodness I do feel old-fashioned hearing that! However, I'm not entirely persuaded that more sex education is the answer to the hyper-sexualised world you describe young people living in today. Perhaps as adults we might try to equip children with the moral character to ignore that part of the culture and focus on the things by which they will flourish. Hard as that is, it might well be worth it.
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@2127493739 said in Florida to Enact "Don't Say Gay" Bill:
The left sees early teaching about sexuality / gender as an opportunity to advance leftwing narratives
I'm sorry, but I cannot let this pass. This is just nonsense. Who, specifically, is saying anything even remotely like this? And who, specifically, is doing anything like this?
This is not a "both sides" issue. This is strictly a partisan Republican issue, just as all of the anti-gay stuff has been for pretty much my entire life.
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@2127493739 said in Florida to Enact "Don't Say Gay" Bill:
Perhaps as adults we might try to equip children with the moral character to ignore that part of the culture
That has been tried many times, with abstinence programs and various "purity" notions. It has been well established, repeatedly, that none of that works. At all.
I also reject your premise that teaching about sex is in any way contributing to a "hyper-sexualised world," nor that this is what flozen described. This is your notion, not his. And if you're going to claim this notion, you'll have to do a much better job defending it.
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@2127493739 said in Florida to Enact "Don't Say Gay" Bill:
What, and at what age, should we tell children about sexual orientation?
I reject your conflating or confounding talking about sexual orientation and sexual education/reproduction. They are NOT the same thing. Orientation is a set of sexual, emotional, romantic, or cultural patterns. Hetero-normative behavior is taught to children just as much as homo-normative behavior. Again, I reference you back to the Berenstain Bears book for 4-year olds I linked earlier. It teaches them how heterosexual households and family dynamics work.
Children start learning about sexual orientation long before they start learning about sexual reproduction. Toddlers begin being able to identify things as male/masculine vs. female/feminine as early as 18 months old. In university studies questioning 9-year olds (which would be Grade 3-4), 75%+ of them understood questions about sexual orientation, with approximately 1% of them already self-identifying as LGBT.
The moment children start being exposed to hetero-normative imagery, ideas, mores, norms, etc., that's when they start learning about sexual orientation. There is no way you can create a school curriculum to teach children without some form of sexual orientation material creeping in. How can kindergarteners learn about George and Martha Washington without them picking up on the husband/wife element of that narrative? The level of abstraction that would be required to remove all references to sexual orientation would render the material incomprehensible to children.
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OK, so Florida is the State that I have lived in for 54 of my 58 years... born & raised here in the Sunshine State (and, sadly, home of everyone's favorite nutball, "Florida Man")...
Most of you are falling into the deliberate trap that is being set for you:
- Banning the "teaching" of LGBTQ issues in K-3 isn't the "crux" of the bill - it's a lightening rod to draw attention away from the other part of the bill... the part that empowers individual parents to sue schools and school personnel over perceived inappropriate instruction.
As to the other crap you've found digging around the intentional rabbit-hole (rabbit-trap?):
- Anti-Grooming implies that LGBTQ issues are "learned" - a very 1950's way of thinking, and provably wrong. You can't teach kids to be gay any more than you can "straight camp" teach them to be straight! BUT by making such preposterous claims, the LGBTQ activists are focused on that statement, instead of the empowerment of the radical, religious right who wants to ensure that our schools "teach Christian values" to our children!
- There are tens of thousands of K-3 teachers in this State, and some of them are BAD at their jobs. What the hell do you expect for a job that requires a college degree and pays only $36k/yr! - You're NOT going to get the "best and brightest", and you're absolutely going to attract people (and hire them - out of desperation!) who have "ulterior motives" to being teachers.... whether that's power-hungry bullies, or child molesters, or other bad intentions... they're there, and at those wages, we're stuck trying to weed them out AFTER they've been hired!
- There is no widespread "curriculum" where teachers are "instructing" K-3 (5-10 y/o kids) in LGBTQ issues... but what is the Kindergarten teacher supposed to do NOW when Billy draws HIS family - like all the other kids in the class, and he has himself, his little sister, the dog, the cat, the goldfish... and his 2 dads?
IMHO, this is a "play on socially divisive issues" campaign (those LGBTQ people are "training" our kids and "recruiting" them so they can be molested by those pedo-loving LGBTQ people later!) that is also hoping to leverage the same tactic the TX religious right is using to attack abortion: kill them with lawsuits from individuals, not the State!
What's more, the language in this bill is so vague, it is sure to be struck down in the courts...
Just my observations... from the front lines
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And ALEC are the well known ghost writers.
