Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis on Monday for the first time showed support for an anti-LGBTQ bill that bans discussion of LGBTQ issues or topics in schools while forcing teachers to out children to their parents at home.
“In terms of the schools, we’ve seen instances of students being told by different folks in school, ‘Oh, you know, don’t worry, don’t pick your gender yet. Do all this other stuff,’” DeSantis said Monday, Florida Politics reports. “They won’t tell the parents about these discussions that are happening. That is entirely inappropriate.”
DeSantis also said it is “inappropriate” for teachers “to be hiding these things from parents,” meaning issues of sexual orientation or gender identity.
“To get into situations where you’re not having the parent (involved), where you’re hiding things from the parent, you’re injecting these concepts about choosing your gender. That is just inappropriate for our schools,” DeSantis reinforced.
“We want to make sure our schools are focusing on the basics. We don’t want them to be engines for things like (critical race theory), things that are divisive and not accurate.”
The bill, officially Florida House Bill 1557, “Parental Rights in Education,” would also allow parents to sue the schools if they feel their “rights” as outlined in the legislation have been violated.
The “Don’t Say Gay” bill was filed by freshman Florida House Republican Joe Harding, the founder of a local lawn care company, has no background in education or child development.