ADVANCES OPPRESSIVE EXPANSION OF ‘DON’T SAY GAY’ LAW

Florida’s latest “parental rights” bill would force students and school employees back into the closet so that the forced lack of diversity will make their majority cisgender, heterosexual students feel more comfortable.

Orwellian as it sounds, TIME reports that it’s likely to pass into law.

This bill, HB 1223, aims to expand upon the Parental Rights in Education Act passed last year, which prohibits the discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in classrooms from kindergarten through third grade. If it passes, the prohibition will be expanded through eighth grade.

The bill also bans the use of pronouns that don’t align with sex assigned at birth, both for students and faculty. It would put into law the assertion that “it is false to ascribe to a person a pronoun that does not correspond to such person's sex.”

The bill has passed its first reading and now advances to the Education & Employment

Committee.

According to the Tampa Bay Times, Rep. Adam Anderson stands by the claim that the bill protects “the rights of all parents.”

Anderson has said that regardless of whether a different set of pronouns is appropriate for one student, “we have to recognize that in that classroom there’s 19 or 20, 25 other students … and it may not be appropriate for those kids.”

Supporters of the bill are not shy about favoring homogeneity over the celebration of diversity and protection for minorities.