RON DESANTIS AND CULTURE WAR IN FLORIDA. One of the weirder scenes in our recent politics took place this week in the Florida State Capitol in Tallahassee. Three Democratic state senators linked arms and did a sort of semi-dance down a hallway singing an impromptu song, “Gay, gay, gay! My daughter’s gay! Gay, gay, gay, gay, gay!” (They had apparently gotten the idea from a Saturday Night Live skit.)
Florida Senate Democrats were so proud of the moment that they posted a video on Twitter with the message: “We’ve got one thing to say to our GOP colleagues — GAY!”
What was that about? The video was another step in state Democrats’ (very successful) campaign to label a Republican-sponsored bill, H.B. 1557, the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Democrats claim the bill, which passed the Senate on Monday, would ban the very mention of homosexuality in Florida schools. With “Don’t Say Gay,” they came up with a catchy phrase that many in the media picked up immediately.
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For those more curious than some journalists, the first thing to ask is: Does the bill really do that? Does the bill include, perhaps in obscure legislative language, some version of “Don’t Say Gay?” The answer is no, it doesn’t. Here is the part of the bill that has caused so much controversy:
Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.
Notice that the bill prohibits “classroom instruction” on “sexual orientation or gender identity” by teachers or other adults in kindergarten through third grade. It also says that such instruction after third grade must be “age-appropriate” or “developmentally appropriate.” Another way of looking at it is that Florida law will allow classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity beginning in the fourth grade. And that suggests the popular conversation about the bill, from Saturday Night Live on, has been entirely wrong.
“It’s a classic example of fearmongering,” said Republican Florida state Rep. Joe Harding, who sponsored the bill. “By creating a name for the bill that is not real — the word ‘parent’ or ‘parental’ is in the bill 37 times, and nowhere does it say ‘gay’ — they’ve figured out how to capture the nation’s attention with a fake narrative.”
Harding said the origin of the bill lies with another bill, passed last year, on parental rights. Since then, he said, some state school districts have tried to get around the law’s requirements that parents be notified of significant developments involving their children. “We are seeing school districts saying we are going to include the parents, parents have rights, but only on certain issues,” Harding said. “And on issues of gender or sexual orientation, we’re going to exclude the parents.” Harding sent along a form from one Florida district that covered “gender identification,” “gender change,” and “assigned sex at birth” and also gave school officials the option not to notify parents of such issues involving their children.
Much of the new bill — it isn’t very long — is devoted to requiring that parents be included in everything. In addition, there is the prohibition on instruction from kindergarten through third grade. “There have been instances where younger children have been given instruction that purports to say that gender is a product of your choice and not your biology,” added another Florida Republican, state Rep. Paul Renner. “Quite simply, that is not the role of educators. … Now, if a school district makes a plan or a procedure about an individual student, changing their name or their dress at school, parents have to know about it.” Notice that Renner stressed the bill requires parental notification when schools make a “plan or a procedure” about a child’s education — not if a word is simply uttered in the course of a school day.
Taken together, it would seem like a reasonable measure. But Democrats chose to respond with the “Don’t Say Gay” routine. And that did not sit well with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. On Monday, DeSantis was visiting the Florida Strawberry Festival in Plant City — he signed a law making strawberry shortcake Florida’s official dessert — when a reporter, Evan Donovan of WFLA-TV, asked him about H.B. 1557. The exchange did not go well for Donovan. Here it is:
DONOVAN: What critics call the “Don’t Say Gay” bill is on the Senate floor —
DESANTIS: Does it say that in the bill?
DONOVAN: Do you support —
DESANTIS: Does it say that in the bill?
DONOVAN: I’m asking —
DESANTIS: I’m asking you to tell me what’s in the bill because you are pushing false narratives. It doesn’t matter what critics say —
DONOVAN: It says it bans classroom instruction on sexual identity and gender orientation.
DESANTIS: For who? For grades pre-K through three. So 5-year-olds, 6-year-olds, 7-year-olds. The idea that you wouldn’t be honest about that and tell people what it actually says — it’s why people don’t trust people like you. Because you peddle false narratives. And so we disabuse you of those narratives. And we’re going to make sure that parents are able to send their kid to kindergarten without having some of this stuff injected into their school curriculum.
DeSantis will soon sign the new bill into law. And Florida Democrats, perhaps, will continue dancing through the halls of the Capitol, singing, “Gay, gay, gay!” It is the nature of culture war politics today, but it still saddened some Republicans who hoped for a more rational debate. “That video bothered me,” Harding said. “It was making a game and a joke of the process. Florida deserves better than that.”
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