TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Florida senators are preparing to vote Tuesday on the controversial Parental Rights in Education bill. The proposed law is better known by critics as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
The Senate took up the House version of the bill on Monday after the Florida representatives passed it as HB 1557 on Feb. 24. The original Senate version was SB 1834. It prohibits kindergarten through third-grade classroom “instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity.”
Through tears, Florida Sen. Shevrin Jones told his colleagues on the Senate floor on Monday about his difficulties as an openly gay man. He said the “Don’t Say Gay” bill is wrong. His courage received bipartisan applause.
“After taking 30 years of just wanting to make [my dad] and my mom proud ... I never knew that living my truth would cause church members to leave my dad’s church or friends to stop talking to me,” Jones said.
The Republican majority is likely to pass the bill on Tuesday. Gov. Ron DeSantis has said he is prepared to sign it into law. Bryce Hackmeyer was among the student protesters who brought rainbows to Tallahassee on Monday. He is worried this is just the beginning of an attack on the LGBTQ+ community.
“The issue that comes with ambiguous laws is the ability to execute them in the way that lawmakers choose,” said Bryce, who traveled from Broward County.
DeSantis’s press secretary, Christina Pushaw, used Twitter on Friday to label the opponents of the bill as “groomers,” the predatory act of making someone vulnerable to abusive behavior.
“The bill that liberals inaccurately call ‘Don’t Say Gay’ would be more accurately described as Anti-Grooming Bill,” Pushaw wrote, adding “If you’re against the anti-Grooming bill, you are probably a groomer or at least you don’t denounce the grooming of 4- to 8-year-old children. Silence is complicity. This is how it works, Democrats, and I didn’t make the rules.”
Florida Democrats used Twitter to call for Pushaw’s resignation. Equality Florida, an advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, released a statement saying Pushaw’s tweets show DeSantis’s support of the bill “is grounded in a belief that LGBTQ people, simply by existing, are a threat to children and must be erased. He chose Pushaw to speak his mind to the public. He owns this unbridled hatred.”
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