Florida’s “don’t say heterosexual” law.

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

This is brilliant.

https://www.comicsands.com/viral-memo-letting-florida-teachers-know-how-to-troll-don-t-say-gay-law-is-pure-fire-2657092882.html

The poorly written bill specifically designed to be anti-LQBTQ, was written extremely vague, in fact if implemented as written (as opposed to as intended) it bans the the use of all gender norm.

[Tenshot13]

The only ones calling it the don't say gay bill are liberals.  Explain to me what's wrong about not talking about sexuality until after the 3rd grade.

[ArtieChokePhin]

Explain that to me.   Kids that young should not be learning about that stuff.  They are kids.   

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

The only ones calling it the don't say gay bill are liberals.  Explain to me what's wrong about not talking about sexuality until after the 3rd grade.

You are correct that only liberals are calling it the don’t say gay bill.  Supporters of the law are claiming that anyone that is not cis heterosexual is a pedophile.  That is the problem.

The bill bars teachers from protecting children of homosexual parents from being bullied. 

[Tenshot13]

Show me

[Spider-Dan]

The only ones calling it the don't say gay bill are liberals.  Explain to me what's wrong about not talking about sexuality until after the 3rd grade.

Because it's NOT limited to K-3.
An excerpt (emphasis added):

"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."

So you tell me: which "state standard" explicitly establishes an appropriate age and/or development for discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity?  Because if such a standard doesn't actually exist, then any teacher in any grade can potentially be held liable.  Which is the point.

That's why it's being called the "don't say gay" bill: it is written in such a way that teachers cannot discuss sexual orientation or gender identity in any grade without exposing themselves to liability under this law.

[ArtieChokePhin]

Because it's NOT limited to K-3.
An excerpt (emphasis added):

"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."

So you tell me: which "state standard" explicitly establishes an appropriate age and/or development for discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity?  Because if such a standard doesn't actually exist, then any teacher in any grade can potentially be held liable.  Which is the point.

That's why it's being called the "don't say gay" bill: it is written in such a way that teachers cannot discuss sexual orientation or gender identity in any grade without exposing themselves to liability under this law.

As they should.   When I was a kid, I didn't even know if my teachers were married unless they said so, let alone their sexual orientation.  Why?  Because I was a kid.   Kids do not need to be learning about this stuff.   They need to be allowed to be kids and enjoy their childhood.   Believe me, it gets taken away quickly enough as it is.

[CF DolFan]

Using semantics to argue against the law is you basically saying you don't care that teachers are talking about sex to little kids. That's f'd up no matter how you try to spin it. Even if teachers mean well it is absoultey opening the door for grooming kids that shouldn't be discussing sex with anyone other than their parents anyway.

[Spider-Dan]

When the law says something you don't like, suddenly it's "semantics."

The law was written to suppress LGBT children and humiliate the children of LGBT parents.  But because they tried to get cute with the wording, they have accidentally banned any reference to heterosexuality as well.  So now, in K-3, any reference to Mr. or Mrs., or husband or wife, or gender of any kind is now banned.

It'll be interesting to see how the homophobes and transphobes try to "fix" this law with a carve out that specifically allows teaching young kids about traditional gender roles, which is totally OK and not grooming at all.  Because teaching 9-year-olds about a nuclear family featuring a husband and wife is Wholesome Family Values, while teaching them that some families have two husbands or two wives is Perverse Indoctrination of Degeneracy.

[Spider-Dan]

When I was a kid, I didn't even know if my teachers were married unless they said so, let alone their sexual orientation.  Why?

Apparently because you didn't know what the title Mrs. means.

[Dave Gray]

This law is stupid and a failure and solves nothing and only serves to stir up funding and harass gay people.  We will look back at it in shame.

I wish the people in Florida would actually govern things that matter.  For fuck's sake, we have actual real issues to deal with and 3rd graders getting groomed by gay people ain't one of them.

[Spider-Dan]

Dave, COVID is a fake plandemic that's nothing more than the flu.
The real dangers are child grooming and gay pedophiles, along with voting fraud; things that happen all the time, unlike COVID which doesn't really even do anything.

I do disagree with you on one thing, though: this law is absolutely not a failure.  Even if it's not enforced (or ruled unenforceable), it serves the same purpose as Trump's wall, or the policy that Trump himself repeatedly refers to as the "Muslim ban": it outrages the liberals, while instilling fear, uncertainty, and doubt in marginalized groups... even if it doesn't actually work.  So the law accomplishes everything it was intended to.

Always remember that policy is not the point for the right.  It's pure dominance politics.  This is how pro-free-market Republicans start cheering protectionist tariffs, or how self-styled Reagan Republicans now support Putin and Russia if they think it makes Democrats look bad.  It's Trump, it's Roy Moore, it's MTG and Boebert.  It's not an accident that the party of Denny Hastert, Mark Foley, Gym Jordan, and Matt Gaetz is the party going ballistic about stopping child predators; the whole exercise is intended to make it clear that they will persecute everyone else for their own failings (while continuing to elevate perpetrators in the GOP).

[ArtieChokePhin]

Apparently because you didn't know what the title Mrs. means.

Slick move cutting my post down to fit your liberal agenda.   Little kids don't need to know what Mrs. means.  They only need to know to call their teachers Mr. or Mrs. <last name>.   

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

Little kids don't need to know what Mrs. means.    

I knew the marital status of everyone of my primary teachers.  "Miss" = unmarried.  "Mrs." = married.  I didn't have a "Mr." until middle school.  And the first "Ms." was in high school and that was considered scandalous on her behalf.

My second grade teacher was a lesbian.  But I didn't know it at the time.  She was fired when for being a lesbian when I was in third grade.  When she was fired I like many of my classmates where curious why being she was a great teacher.  We were told it was because she likes girls but didn't like boys.  Which made no sense to us third graders (or her current 2nd graders) as she treated us all very fairly, nobody thought she favored the girls in the class or was unfair to the boys in class.  (Unlike our current third grade teacher who definitely had favorites and other students she treated unfairly).

What I learned in high school was she told people she was heterosexual but shared a 2 bedroom apartment with a college friend to save money.  (Levine and Shirley style) Other teachers in the school were suspicious as she didn't talk about dating/boyfriends etc.  In a failed attempt to put rumors to rest she brought a "boyfriend" the the faculty Xmas party.  Unfortunately, one of the husbands of another teacher knew he was in fact gay and that he was a sham date.  She was fired shortly thereafter.  Learned this from an article in the school newspaper a classmate of mine had ran into her while on vacation and found all this out and wrote up a story. 

But back to the law.  Kids in kindergarten aren't being taught the details of sex and this law is not designed to stop teachers from teaching about anal sex, because they aren't teaching that now.  The aim of this bill is when a kid is bullying Heather because rather than Heather having a mom and dad, she has has two moms, the teacher runs the risk of being sued by the homophobic bullies mom if the teacher says it is okay to have two moms or two dads. 

And as for the purpose of sex ed.  One of the driving forces behind sex ed in schools was a priest.  It began with a eulogy he had to give for a girl who committed suicide. She left a note explaining why she killed herself.  She knew she was dying and was going to die a painful death and rather than suffer she ended her own life.  She was in pain and she was bleeding inside.  The blood was dripping out of where she peed.  But let's leave it up to parents to tell kids everything they need to know about sex.     




 

[Spider-Dan]

Slick move cutting my post down to fit your liberal agenda.   Little kids don't need to know what Mrs. means.  They only need to know to call their teachers Mr. or Mrs. <last name>.

Yes, I understand the belief that the existence of families with same-sex parents should be erased from school, banned from any mention by the teachers because pedophilia or some nonsense.  While this is a ridiculous and absurd position, it is at least a straightforward one, so there was no need for me to rebut it directly.

Instead, I chose to address your claim that as a kid, you had no idea which of your teachers were and were not married.  And as Hoodie already pointed out, this is information that has been readily available to schoolchildren with female teachers for essentially as long as school has existed in this country; so much so that the advent of a method for a female teacher to avoid disclosing her marital status is itself a rather recent development that still has some level of stigma attached in much of the country.